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The organ music of Samuel Wesley

Brown, Georey Ernest

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Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk ABSTRACT,

Like his elder brother Charles, Samuel Wesley (1766^1837) was an

infant prodigy who had an oratorio to his.credit by the time he was eight.

He was generally considered to be the greatest organist in England, being

famed especially for his extemporisations. However, the organ held a

minor place in his output as a composer until he became acquainted with

the music of J.S.Bach, which he worked untiringly to introduce to the

British publico In the early 1800s Wesley began to write a series of

voluntaries, published as his Opus 6, which were conceived on a scale

grander than had previously been attemptede Although he reversed the

general trend towards increasing the number of movements in the voluntary,

he enlarged the dimensions of those that remained, gave them a greater

impression of serious purpose, and accorded the fugue a status greater

even than that which it had enjoyed in the time of Handel and Stanley.

In the last twenty years of his life, while continuing to write grand

voluntaries in the manner of Opus 6, Wesley also wrote organ music in

smaller forms. Prominent among these more varied works are the Short

Pieces, as he called them, miniatures which show his genius quite as

clearly as the larger works.

In 1774 the eight-year-old Wesley presented his oratorio to William

Boyce: in 1837, just before he died, he played to Mendelssohn. Thus

Wesley's life encompassed great changes in musical taste. That he was able to steer a straighter stylistic course through these changes than many of his lesser contemporaries may be attributed to his tendency to stand back from the immediate developments of his day and draw inspir• ation from older sources, notably polyphony and J.S.Bach; but the latter sovcrce particularly was also to be an inspiration to many of the most progressive composers for the next hundred years and more. THE ORGAN MUSIC OF SAMUEL WESLEY

by

GEOFFREY ERNEST BROWN

submitted for the degree of M.A,

in the University of Durham

1977

Faculty of Music

The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. No part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree in any university.

The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. CONTENTS

Chapter I

An Introductory Biography 5

Chapter II

The English Organ in the Time of Wesley 19

Chapter III

A General Survey of English Organ Music

1800-1840 30

Chapter IV

A Division of Wesley's Organ Music into 39

Four Periods and a Consideration of the

Organ Music Written before 1800

Chapter V

The Third Period and Opus 6 50

Chapter VI

The First Part of Qpus 6 59

Chapter VII

Later Third Period Volimtaries and Duets 73

Chapter VIII

The Short pieces 95

Chapter IX

The Voluntaries of 1817 and Op,6 No.12 108

Chapter X

Variations 125

Chapter XI

The Harding Voluntaries 130

Chapter XII

The Later Large-Scale Voluntaries 142

Chapter XIII

Didactic Music 159 Chapter XIV

The Organ Music of Wesley's Last Years 165

Appendix

An Index of Wesley's Organ Works 172

Bibliography 183 CHAPTER I

AN INTRODUCTORY BIOGRAPHY

The general facts of Samuel Wesley's life have often been told beforey This chapter will therefore concentrate on the activities of

Wesley the organist and Wesley the propagandist for Bach, and give only an outline of his career as a whole, sufficient to place these partic• ular aspects in their proper context.

Samuel Wesley was born on February 24th 1766 in Bristol, and thus celebrated the same birthday as Handel, although it must be remem• bered that, between Handel's birth and Wesley's, England had changed from the Julian calender to the Gregorian. Samuel was a member of perhaps the most remarkable English family of the eighteenth century.

Indeed, knowledge of Samuel Wesley has often been confused by the number of his illustrious relations. His uncle was John Wesley, the founder of Methodism;, his father, Charles Wesley, was John's lieuten• ant and the writer of some eight thousand hymns; his brother, another

Charles, was, like Samuel himself, an infant prodigy and composer; his son, Samuel Sebastian, was also a composer, and his reputation has tended to eclipse that of his father. At this point a family tree might help to clarify the facts:

Samuel (1662-1735)

John (1703-91) Charles (1707-88) Foimder of Methodism Hymn Writer

I ' 1 Charles (1757-1834) Samuel (1766-1837) . ,Musician Musician

Samuel Sebastian (1810-76) Eliza (1819-95) Musician Musician

In 1781 Daines Barrington (1727-1800) published his Miscellanies, a book which includes much information on the early careers of Charles junior and Samuel. It contains quotations from notes made by Charles senior and Barrington's own observations. From this account it seems that Samuel lived his early life under the shadow of his elder brother,

who had already achieved fame as a child prodigy before Samuel was born.

When Samuel started to pick out tunes on the harpsichord at the age of

three, his father wrote that "we did not much regard him, coming after

Charles", who had been able to play tunes and put a bass to them at

only two years old, Charles received his lessons from Kelway and Boyce,

but Samuel was left to his own devices. Charles senior writes:

"Whenever Mr, Kelway came to teach him (i.e. Charles junior), Sam constantly attended, and accompanied Charles on the chair. Undaunted by Mr. Kelway's frown, he went on ,,. He was between four and five years old when he got hold of the Oratorio of Samson, and by that alone taught himself to read words. Soon after, he taught himself to write,"

However Samuel came to Boyce»s notice at the age of eight, by which time

he had written an oratorio called Ruth,

Barrington added his own comments to those of the boys' father.

He saw Samuel, then aged nine, in 1775:

"To speak of him first as a performer on the harpsi• chord, he was then able to execute the most, difficult lessons for the instinunent at first sight ... He not only executed crabbed compositions thus at sig^t, but he was equally ready to transpose into any keys, even a fourth.a. I once happened to see some music wet upon his . desk, which, he told me, was a solo for the trumpet. I then asked him if he had heard Fischer upon the hautboy, and would compose an extempore solo, proper for him to execute. To this Sam readily assented... (He) played an extemporary solo... the three movements of which must have lasted not less than ten minutes, and every of which Fischer might have acknowledged for his own,"

Here is an early reference to Samuel's talent for improvis•

ation, which was to be his special claim to fame throughout his career

as an organist. The "solo for the trumpet" which Barrington mentions

is very probably the Voluntary in D which is still to be found among

Wesley's manuscripts in the British Museum and was written about this

time.

In 1770 Samuel's father bought a large house in Chesterfield

Street, Marylebone. For the next eight years the family lived partly in London, partly in Bristol, until the-house in Bristol was finally

given up in 1778. Between 1779 and 1785 the house in Chesterfield

Street was the scene of seven seasons of subscription concerts in

which Charles and Samuel Wesley were the principal performers and

composers. In the room where the concerts were held there were two

organs and a harpsichord. Both brothers played their own organ

compositions, as well as duets for two organs and improvisations.

There was a small orchestra of strings and horns available to play over•

tures, symphonies and concertos by the young composers. Charles seems

to have been the leading organist but Samuel could also shine as a

violinist and- took the solo part in his own violin concertos. Charles

appears to have had a monopoly on organ concertos. These concerts were

patronised by people of the greatest distinction, including the Earl of

Mornington (father of the Duke of Wellinii:on) and Samuel Johnson.

Some time about 1783, Samuel Wesley startled his family by becoming a Roman Catholic. He seems to have been drawn into the Roman

chia'ch by the music at the Chapel of the Portuguese Embassy. It was here that he first made contact with plainsong' and renaissance poly• phony, two powerful influences on his later choral music. Naturally

this period saw him writing' a great deal of Latin church music, includ•

ing- the Magnificat In Festo Sancti Johannis of 1783, but the most fam•

ous of the compositions inspired by his conversion to Rome was written

in the following year, and sent to the Pope. It is the Missa de

Spiritu Sancto. a full-scale setting for soloists, choir, and an

orchestra of strings, oboes, horns, trumpets and drums. Wesley's

adherence to the Roman Catholic religion was slight and short-lived,

but he continued to write latin masses and motets for the rest of his

life. He also maintained some interest in the Portuguese Chapel through

his close friendship with Vincent Novello, who was organist there from

1797.

Some people have attached great importance to an accident which befell Samuel in 1787, attributing to it the serious depression from

which he suffered throughout his life. On his way home, late one

night, he fell into a deep hole on Snow HLll, He was not rescued im-

til the following morning, A doctor recommended that he should have

a small part of his skull removed, but he refused to undergo the oper•

ation. It is not impossible that this accident did contribute to

Wesley's markedly depressive character, but that it cannot have been

a major factor is shown by certain characteristics which had already

long been apparent. He had an intense dislike of gratheringps of people,

and of town life in general, while his tendency towards obsession was

illustrated by his inordinate concern as a boy with being in bed on

time. He would walk out of a concert rather than be out of bed at

eight o'clock. It is interesting to compare his general character with that of his brother. Charles was extraordinarily placid. He was easy-going and amiable, if somewhat withdrawn, but quite unable to live without protection. He was looked after by his sister for most of his life, Samuel, on the other hand, was constantly alternat•

ing between elation and despair. His attitude towards life was aggress• ive and independent; he was naturally distrustful of other people, but capable of deep friendships with the few who really knew him, whereas

Charles remained isolated. The contrasted characters of the two brothers may well stem from those early years when Charles received such overpowering attention, while Samuel had to struggle to be noticed at all.

It was about the time that he turned to Roman Catholicism, that Samuel, had to start trying to form a career for himself. At no time in his life did he ever find professional employment worthy of his talents. Most of what he earned came from teaching the piano in small schools. It is not known whether he tried to obtain an organist's appointment at this time, but if he did, his mixed background of Method• ism and Roman Catholicism can hardly have seemed attractive in the Church of England. Later he applied without success at the Foundling

Hospital in 1798, and again in 1813, Lambeth Parish Church in 1815, and

St. George's Hanover Square in 1824. It was in 1824 that he eventually

achieved his first appointment as an organist at the unimportant Camden

Chapel. It seems from a letter of Wesley's to Benjamin Jacobs, who was

organist at the Surrey Chapel, that the minister, Rowland Hill, had

suggested that Wesley should succeed Jacobs. Wesley's reply was that

he would rather share the work with Jacobs but nothing more came of the

idea. One is driven to the conclusion that Wesley did not try as hard

as he might in this sphere, possibly through too great a desire to

avoid rejection. Although he could not find a regular job as an organ•

ist in London, he was twice invited to open organs outside the city in

the years before 1800, In 1788 he visited Sevenoaks, and in 1798 Rich•

mond, Surrey.

Meanwhile in 1793 Wesley married an assistant teacher in one

of the schools where he taught, Charlotte Louise Martin, who was about

five years his senior. Although they had three children, the marriage

seems to have been stormy from the start. It is not clear when Char•

lotte left her husband, but the couple were legally separated in 1812,

by which time Wesley had settled down with his housekeeper, Sarah Suter,

and had already had one child by her, Samuel Sebastian, who was born in

.il810.

The younger Samuel owed his second name to his father's discov•

ery of J.S.Bach, whose enthusiastic champion he now was. Before 1796

an English musician who had not travelled abroad had to rely on Burney's

A General History of Music for his opinion of Bach. In that work,

published in 1776, Burney had stated that "Sebastian Bach... disdained

facility so much, that his genius never stooped to the easy and

graceful." Burney had never seen "an easy and obvious passage that is

not loaded with crude and difficult accompaniment." The only music 10

of Bach known to have existed in England at this time was a manuscript

of the first 24 of the 48 Preludes and Fugues which Burney (who later

admitted that he had never heard them played) had been given by

C,P.E.Bach, and a manuscript containing the Credo from the Mass in B

minor, the third part of the Clavierubung, and the 48 Preludes and

Fugues, owned by Queen Charlotte. The first man to publish any music

by J.S.Bach in England was August Kollman (1756-1829( who in 1784 had

come to England as organist at St. James' Chapel. In 1799 he published

an Essay on Musical Harmony which included an analysis of the Prelude

and Fugue in F minor from Book II of the 48. Three years later, in his

Essay on Practical Musical Composition, he included all the Riddle

Canons from the Musical Offering, with their solutions, the Prelude and

Fugue in C major from Book I of the 48, the Trio Sonata in E flat for

organ, and an advertisement notifying his intention to issue a complete

analytical edition of the 48 Preludes and Fugues. This plan, however,

came to nothing. In 1800 William Shield became the first Englishman

to publish music by Bach with the appearance of the Prelude in D minor

from Book I of the 48 in his Introduction to Ifarmony. At about the

same time two foreign editions of the complete 48 Preludes and Fugues were also sold in England by London publishers: Naegeli's Zurich edit•

ion was sold by Lavenu, and Simrock's Bonn edition by Broderip and

Wilkinson, In 1806 Kollman published the Chromatic Fantasia.

In his Autobiography^ Wesley.said that he was first introduced

Bach's music by a young pianist, brought to England by Salomon, called

George Frederick Pinto (1786-1806). Wesley can never have known more than a small part of Bach's output. He knew a fair amount of music for keyboard, some for violin, and some choral works, but probably knew nothing of Bach's orchestral music. There is evidence to show that he knew at least the following works: 11

Organ

"St, Anne" Fugue Arranged by Wesley as an organ duet (See Appendix Section C;NO,15)

The six trio sonatas Published by Wesley aijd C. F. Horn

Some chorale preludes including "Wir glauben all» au einem Gott" (known as the "Giant" fugue) Mentioned in Letter IX of Letters of Samuel Wesley to Mr. Jacobs, ed. Eliza Wesley

Canonic Variations on "Von Himmel Hoch" Copied by Wesley in Royal College of Music Ms. 4021

The six Great Preludes and Fugues. Mentioned in unattributed quotation in Lightwood, Samuel Wesley, Musician, p.179.

Harpsichord

Das Wohltemperierte Klavier Published by Wesley and C.F.Horn.

The Goldberg Variations Copied by Wesley in British Museum Add. Ms. 14344

"Exercises", probably either suites or inventions Mentioned in Letters VII and VIII of Letters of Samuel Wesley to Mr. Jacobs, ed, Eliza Wesley.

Violin

Sonatas for violin and harpsichord Mentioned in Letters XII and XVIII of Letters of Samuel Wesley to Mr. Jacobs, ed, Eliza Wesley

Works for unaccompanied violin Mentioned in unattributed quotation in Lightwood, Samuel Wesley, Musician p.135

Choral Music

Jesu Meine Freude Performed by.Wesley at the Hanover Square Rooms, June 3rd 1809

Unspecified "Sacred Motetts" performed at the Hanover Square Rooms in 1809 and.1810.

Credo having "gigantic features" with orchestral accompaniment, presum• ably from the Miass in B minor. Mentioned in Letter XXIV of Letters of Samuel Wesley to Mr. Jacobs, ed. Eliza Wesley.

In addition it is unlikely that Wesley allowed himself to miss the

Riddle Canons from the Musical Offering and the Chromatic Fantasia which were published in London during his life-time. 12

Typically, Wesley quickly set himself the task of altering Burney's

2 opinion of "Saint Sebastian" , This he did in 1807 by performing part of the 48 for the old man, who "was extremely delighted, and oo« ex• pressed his wonder how such abstruse harmony and such perfect and 3 enchanting melody could have been so marvellously united" ; this Wesley reported to Benjamin Jacobs, also a Bach enthusiast, in a letter of Sept• ember 1808. Later he arranged performances of the Goldberg Variations

and Sonatas for violin and harpsichord in Dr. Burney's home.

Apart from personal contact, Wesley promoted his musical hero

through Lectures give;n in London from 1810, through performances of his music, and through publishing. He arranged the "St, Anne" Fugue for

organ duet and performed it in London, Norwich and Yarmouth. In the

latter place it "was received with the same kind of wonder that people

express when they see an air balloon ascend for the first time,"

When he performed his Organ Concerto of 1800 at Tamworth in 1809, he

inserted an orchestral arrangement of the Fugue in D from the first book

of the 48, which " produced a glorious effect",^ In the same year he

directed the first English performance of Jesu Meine Freude at the

Hanover, Square Rooms, As a publisher of Bach's works, he collaborated

with C, F.^Horn (1762-1832) who had come to England in 1782; he was

music master to the Queen and princesses, and was probably responsible

for the Queen's Bach manuscript, which is dated 1788, Hiey published

the six trio-sonatas for orgran in separate numbers during 1809 and

1810, There was at the time no English organist or orgran capable of

performing them, and the editors wrote a preface explaining how Bach

intended them to be played, and advising .purchasers to perform them

as three-handed duets, the top part being transposed up an octave.

Between 1810 and I8l3 they published the 48 Preludes and Fugues com•

plete in four volumes. Again both editors put their names to a

lengrthy preface, but the pugnacious style of such passages as the 13

following betrays the authorship of Wesley. One may be sure that he was

thinking of Burney in particular • at the end of the first paragraph and 6 of the oft-derided "mere Handelians" in the second. "These introductory Remarks are not designed as a Panegyric upon Compositions which have perpetually delighted the candid Lover of Truth, Science, Taste, and Expression, and even extorted the ^^probation of those whose Prejudices had formerly superseded their better Judgement. "Too many there are who illiberally confine their notions of musical Excellence to the Compositions of one Country only (and even still more absurdly to one Composer). As our Acquaintance with the Excellence to be found (more or less) in all Countries becomes more extended, these narrow and ill-founded Pre• possessions will necessarily diminish, until we may^ reasonably hope they will be finally exterminated,"

Wesley seems also to have been involved in some way with a plan

to publish an English translation of Forkel's biography of Bach which g had appeared in Germany in 1802. In a letter to Benjamin Jacobs , dated October 17th 1808, Wesley says that he and Horn are already pre• paring for the press a translation made by a banker named Stephenson,

However nothing came of this scheme, and no English translation appeared until 1820 when a translation into clumsy English was published anonym• ously by Kollman.

The years 1809 to 1816 saw Wesley making several journeys into the provinces. In September 1809 he took part in a Music Meeting at

Tamworth, The major works performed were Messiah and The Creation, in which Wesley played the organ continue. He also improvised at the orgran, and two of his own compositions were performed, the quartet

Father of Light, and the Organ Concerto in which he had incorporated the Bach fugue. On his way home he took part in a concert at Birmingham, where he played a Fantazia (apparently improvised) on the piano which concluded with "Roly Poly Gammon and Spinach" and seems to have been greeted with ecstatic applause.

In October 1811 Wesley was back^in Birmingham to conduct the

Birmingham Festival. The concerts were held in St. Phillip's and again the chief works were Messiah and The Creation. In 1812 he gave an organ 14

recital in Ramsgate, and was installed as the first Grand Organist of the Freemasons (he had been a Freemason since 1788), a post which he held until 1818, He was in Norwich in October 1814, where he played for several services in the Cathedral and grave an exhibition of orgran playing at St. Peter Mancroft, He performed his own Organ Duet in C, which he had first played with Vincent Novello at the Hanover Square Rooms in 1812, and also his Duet Prelude to and arrangement of the "St, Anne" Fugue, This latter he had performed, also with Vincent Novello, earlier in the year at the Foundling Hospital.

Wesley travelled to Yarmouth in July 1815, Here he gave a con•

cert in the parish Church on what he said was the most magnificent organ

he had yet heard. It was large by English standards, with three manuals,

pedals and twenty-seven stops, and on it Wesley played, once again, the

"St, Anne" Fugue and the Goldberg Variations,

In August of the following year Wesley returned to Norwich, and

stayed with Alfred Pettet, the organist at St, peter Mancroft, In Sept•

ember he was at High Wycombe, where he played one of his own orgran con•

certos in a "Grand Concert",

The period between his discovery of J.S.Bach and 1817 was prob•

ably the most successful, and the happiest, part of Wesley's life. Much

of his greatest music was written during these years, for instance the

Twelve Voluntaries 0P»6i the Twelve Short Pieces with a Full Voluntary

added, the Piano Sonata in D minor, and the motet In Exitu Israel. His campaign on behalf of Bach's music was in its youthful prime and had resulted in the publication of the Organ Sonatas and the 48 Preludes and Fugues. He had travelled widely as both conductor and orgranist, and he was now happily "married", living with his house-keeper.

But he had always been prey to bouts of depression, and on

May 5th 1817 he tried to commit suicide by jumping out of a window. He did himself remarkably little harm, but the next eight years saw much less activity. Not until 1825 did he resume his earlier pattern of 15

travel. In that year he visited Cambridge, and it was on another visit

to Cambridge in the following year that he discovered three tunes by

Handel set to hymns by his father, Charles Wesley. One of them was the

famous Gopsal, still sung to Wesley's hymn, "Rejoice the Lord is King".

In 1827 Samuel visited Winchester, where he twice played for

the Cathedral services. By this time his son, Samuel Sebastian, was

seventeen, and he sometimes helped his father at recitals. One such

recital was a "Performance of Ancient Music" given in 1827 by the Wesleys,

father and son, and a blind organist named Topliff in Christ Church

Newgate Street. There was also a choir and the composers represented

were Handel and Haydn.

In 1828, a largre organ was built in the Brunswick Chapel, Leeds.

Samuel's brother Charles, now past seventy, was originally asked to open

it, but he declined. So it was that Samuel played for the opening

services on September I2th.

Wesley's last major journeys were, fittingly, to Bristol, the place of his birth. His first visit took place in September and October

1829, when he stayed with one D.G.Wait in Blagdon. One of his duties was to open the organ at St. Mary Redcliffe. The advertisement for the three concerts which he gave there ran as follows:

"The admirers of fine organ playing, and of Sacred Music in general, are respectfully informed that the Noble Organ of this church,.^ which has recently been repaired and improved by Mr. Smith, will be opened by Mr. Samuel Wesley, the celebrated Extempore Org^ist and Editor of the works of the Immortal Sebastian Bach (and who has not visited Bristol for the last twenty years), and who will display his unrivalled powers on that Instrument in Three Performances of Sacred Music."^

Wesley was aided in these concerts by a choir and by his son, who played duets with him and performed his own variations on "God Save.- the King". Wesley seems to have been a great success in Bristol. On

25th September Mr. Wait wrote to Wesley's wife (that is Sarah Suter): 16

"My object.in writing is to request you not to mention to anyone that he has more than common.success, because we fear that others may try the experiment on this rich ground, which would be an injury to another journey. I have obtained a promise from the vestry, that Mr. Wesley shall also have three days next summer on Redcliffe Organ, The Church holds four thousand peopleo"^^

Samuel had to overcome one bizarre difficulty. In a note attached

to the letter just quoted he mentions his brother:

"Charles has been endeavouring to prevent my Interest every way he could; and I have had the greatest diffi• culty to convince many of the folk here that I am the real Sam. Vlfesley and not an Imposter counterfeiting the name. Is not this funny?"

In a later letter Samuel shows an extraordinary and uncharact• eristic bitterness towards his brother.

"The real fact is now well known that I am Samuel Wesley and that Charles is not ... He can never crow again upon his Bristol Dunghill, and clap his wing as in times past,"

After the brilliant success of the concerts, the visit seems to have turned sour. Apart from his difficulties with Charles and his supporters, Samuel was not happy about the financial results of his work. He certainly derived some benefit from his success, for later in the month he sent £80 home to his wife, but he did not believe he was receiving his due. In a letter, dated October 11th, he writes:

"The Bristolians are a shabby scabby set of (word deleted) to say no worse of them: they are trying to cheat me as much as they can,"

In spite of his opinion of its townspeople, Wesley was in

Bristol again in January 1830, determined "that none of the Waits will • 13 be able to pick another halfpenny out of my pocket". ^ He stayed about two weeks; there is no evidence that he gave any public recitals, but he does write of selling and giving away books which contained either his own compositions or the Handel tunes which he had discovered in

Cambridge and which were now published.

Charles Wesley died in 1834, so that for the last three years of his life Samuel received the small pension which the Methodists paid 17

in return for the copyright on his father's hymnse This money helped

to save him from the utter poverty to which he had been uncomfortably

close for most of his life.

The last great event of Samuel Wesley's life was his meeting

with Mendelssohn, which did not occur until Mendelssohn's second visit

to London, in 1837, Wesley was in the audience with his dau^ter, Eliza,

which heard Mendelssohn play on the organ, recently rebuilt under the

direction of Wfesley's friend, Henry Gauntlett, in Oirist Church Newgate

Street on September I2th. The Musical World for September 15th 1837

described their meeting thus:

"Mr. Samuel Wesley, the father of English organists, was present and remained not the least gratified auditor, and expressed his delight in terms of unmeas• ured approbationo At the expressed desire of Mo Mendelssohn who wished that he could hereafter say he had heard Wesley play^ the veteran took his seat at the instrument and extemporised with a purity and orig• inality of thought for which he has rendered his name ever illustrious. The touch of the instrument, however, requires a strong and vigorous finger, and Mr. Wesley, who is at present an invalid, was unable to satisfy himself, although he could gratify those around him."

Eliza told C.W.Pearce that Wesley's reaction to Mendelssohn's

compliments was merely to say, "Ah, Sirj you have not heard me play; ... 14

you should have heard me forty years agoj"

Wesley never left his house again after meeting Mendelssohn.

Only a month later The Musical World was announcing his death, which

occurred on October 11th 1837, "It is our melancholy duty to announce the death of this very extraordinary musician and accomplished scholar. Mr, Wesley expired on Wednesday last, in the afternoon, i'A at about 20 minutes after 4 o'clock, in a calm and com• posed state of mind, and in total freedom from pain. His illness, which was diarrhoea (the frequent attendant upon the decay of nature) had not assumed a formidable aspect till a few days before his death. MX*. Wesley .,. was in his seventy-second year."

Endnotes

1. British Museum Add. Ms. 27593

2. Letter I of Letters of Samuel Wesley to WCp Jacobs, ed. Eliza Wesley.

3. ibid. 18

4, Letter dated July I8th 1815, to Vincent Novello. Quoted in Lightwood, Samuel Wesley, Musician p«l78 .

5, Letter XIII of Letters of Samuel Wesley to Mr. Jacobs, ed. Eliza Wesley.

6, Letter V of Letters of Samuel Wesley to Mr. Jacobs, ed. Eliza Wesley

7, This preface is quoted almost in its entirety in Hinrichsen's Music Book. Vol. VII p.305

8, Letter II of Letters of Samuel Wesley to Mr. Jacobs, edo Eliza Wesley

9, Lightwood, Samuel Wesley, Musician p.212

10, British Miseum Add. Ms. 35012

11, ibid.

12, ibid,

13, ibid,

14, C.W.Pearce, Notes on Old London City Churches, their Organs, Organists, and Musical Associations. 19

CHAPTER II

THE ENGLISH ORGAN IN THE TIME OF WESLEY.

Although towards the end of Samuel Wesley's life the English organ entered a period of rapid change, before that time its design had re• mained almost static for more than a hundred years. A description of the type of organ on which Wesley played, and for which he wrote his music must therefore begin by going back to the middle of the seventeenth century.

The Civil War forced a break in the English organ building tradition; most organs were destroyed and native organ builders had to find work on the Continent. When they returned to replace the destroyed organs at the Restoration, they brought with them new ideas from Europe and be• gan to establish an entirely new style of building* Two of the most important innovations which date from this time are reeds and mixtures.

Without doubt the two most important builders at this time were

Bernard Smith and Renatus Harris. The type of organ which they had established by 1700 was still, with few variations, the standard design of 1800. Such an organ would have two or three manuals. The Great organ would contain a complete diapason chorus from unison to Mixture, a Trumpet and a Cornet. The Cornet was a compound solo stop of five ranks sounding the unison, octave, twelfth, fifteenth and seventeenth.

The second manual would be the Choir containing flue stops at 8 ft, 4 ft, and 2 ft. pitches, and perhaps one or two solo reed stops. Large organs would have a third manual, the Echo, the pipes of which would be enclosed in a box. The main function of the Echo organ was to provide echo ver• sions of the various solo stops to be found on the Great and Choir organs.

Some of the orgrans of Smith and Harris boasted other foreign imports, mutation stops higher than 2 ft. pitch such as the larigot, and such stop names as Gedackt and Holfleut, but these seem to have found little favour and are not to be found on later organs, perhaps the most typ• ical example of the style is the organ built in 1725 for St. George's 20

Hanover Square by Bernard Smith's nephew, Gerard.

Great

Open Diapason 8 Stopped Diapason 8

Principal 4 Twelfth 2f

Fifteenth 2 Sesquialtera IV ranks

Cornet V ranks •Trumpet 8

Clarion 4

Choir

Stopped Diapason 8 Principal 4

Flute 4 Fifteenth 2

Vox Humana 8

Echo (short compass)

Open Diapason 8 Stopped Diapason 8

Cornet III ranks Hautboy 8

Trumpet 8 Cremorne 8

By the time this organ was built, the one important development in the first half of the eighteenth century had already occurred, the invention of the Swell box. All this meant was that the stops that had previously been put into the Echo organ, were now placed in the Swell where they could still act as echoes when the box was shut but could also provide crescendi and diminuendi if required.

The English organ, as developed in the late seventeenth century, gave rise to a national school of organ composition which reached its climax around 1750, particularly in the organ voluntaries of John Stanley.

The conventions of this school in the use of the organ r^ained in force, with slight modifications, until the time of Wesley's death in 1837.

The regular voluntary of the period was in two movements, the first be• ing slow and the second faster, and there were three basic types of organ sound: Diapasons, Full Organ, and a variety of solo colours.

The term "Diapasons" meant the combination of Open Diapason and Stopped

Diapason and was used in the "Solo Voluntary", The first movement was 21

played entirely on.the Diapasons and was similar in style to the slow movements of Corelli's trio-sonatas. The second movement featured a particular solo stop in the right hand for which the Diapasons provided the bass. The usual solo stops were the Cornet, the 4 ft. Flute, the Trumpet, the Hautboy, the Cremona, and the Vox Humana. The reed stops were combined with a Stopped Diapason. Often two solo stops were used in the same movement, for instance Cornet and Echo Cornet, or Trumpet and Vox Humana, in which case one stop would take the ritornello and the other the solo in a concerto-like movement. Full Organ was re• served for the Full Voluntary, which was a prelude and fugue played on the full organ throughout. "Full Organ" probably meant any combination on the Great from the full diapason chorus up to the Fifteenth to the entire Great Organ with the exception of the Cornet, according to the player's choice.

During the rest of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nine•

teenth centuries there were gradual, but eventually significant, changes

both in the registration called for in organ music and, later, in organ

specifications. The change in registration was more a change of emphasis

than any radical innovation. The more melodic solo stops, such as the

Hautboy and the Cremona, were now used much more frequently, while the

Cornet, a stop better suited to figuration, and very popular in the

middle of the century, was by 1800 regarded with a good deal of suspicion.

The Swell organ, called for only occasionally by Stanley, was now used frequently. Much information about conventional organ registration at

the end of the eighteenth century can be grained from the introduction to a set of eighteen voluntaries by John Marsh, published in 1791, His remarks upon the contents of the Great and Choir organs indicate spec• ifications which differ in no respect from that of the orgran at St,

George's Hanover Square, while what he has to say about their use differs from what Stanley might have said only in Marsh's lack of enthusiasm for the Cornet, He particularly advises against the use of the Cornet in 22 major keys, except on very joyous festivals. However his comments on the use of the Swell are more interesting because its use is indicated very often in the music of Wesley and his contemporaries without any further information as to which particular stop is meant. The Swell organ, like the Echo organ before it, was, until well into the nineteenth century, a short compass manual, usually running upwards from fiddle G, Marsh had this to say about it:

"The only part of the organ remaining to be described, is the Swell, the usual stops in which are The two Diapasons (1,2) which when used alone produce much the same effect as the Dulciana in the Choir organ; they are therefore generally joined at least with The Principal (3), The most beautiful stops however in the Swell are The Hautboy (4) and Trumpet (5) which being in unison together, may be used either singly or both together, but always with the diapasons. To the whole of which may be added The Cornet (6) which altogether makes what is called the Full Swell, "

These remarks make it clear that the reeds were considered to be the stops most characteristic of the Swell, and therefore it may be assumed that where the direction "Swell" is placed over a rig^it hand part, a solo reed is meant, probably of the more "expressive" sort such as the Oboe or the Vox Ifiimana. Plainly the composer is more concerned that his music should be supplied with crescendi and diminuendi than with the precise tone coloiu* of the solo. Sometimes all the parts are directed to be played on the Swell, in which case the bass cannot de• scend below fiddle G, In such music, again the point is obviously that the player should provide crescendo and diminuendo effects, and the most appropriate stops would be the Diapasons, perhaps with the Principal,

Finally Marsh's comments on the Swell Cornet are of interest.

The Cornet was originally placed in the Swell organ to provide an echo to the Great Cornet, and was never intended, so far as we know, to be used in combination with any other stops except the Diapasons (the

Swell Cornet, in particular, usually only contained the three or four upper ranks and therefore had to be combined with the Diapasons), 23

Marsh, who barely approves of Cornet voluntaries, does not mention its- use as a solo stop but instead informs us that it was used as part of a "Full Swell" in which the predominant colours would be the reeds and the Cornet, The direction "Full Swell" does appear occasionally in the music of Wesley and his contemporaries, over both right hand passages and block harmony for both hands. Ex. 1 gives some illustrations of the different circumstances in which this ubiquitous term '"Swell" may be found in Wes• ley's music and the probable ways in which it should be understood.

These changes in taste began to be reflected in orgfan design.

From 1800 onwards the Cornet began to disappear from both Great and

Swell organs, usually to be replaced by solo stops of eig^t foot pitch.

However, the most noticeable change in organ specifications during this

period was the tentative appearance of pedals, sometimes with pipes,

sometimes without. The organ at St. Mary Redcliffe Bristol, built by

Renatus Harris and John Byfield in 1726, had pedal keys, but no pedal

pipes, and Handel's organ concerto OP*7 No.l written in the 1740s calls for an organ with pedals, but there was no general movement in this direction until the early nineteenth century. The main obstacle to the development of pedal organs in England was of course the fact that no• body could use them and very few were prepared to learn. At first the pedals were never equipped with more than a single rank of pipes and were used merely as a convenient way of holding a pedal point. Of

English composers writing before 1840, only William Russell and Wesley wrote, even occasionally, a fully developed pedal part.

However, the appearance of pedals soon became part of a gener• al movement in organ design which was to mark the end of the era that had begun with Harris and Smith, From the last part of the seventeenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth, organs in England had re• mained the same size, by German and French standards rather small, but from 1820 it was plain that nineteenth century organists would only be satisfied with something a good deal larger. Samuel Wesley gave the 24

opening recital on a new organ at Brunswick Chapel, Leeds, in 1828: built

by Edward Booth of Wakefield this organ boasted a two octave pedal board

and four pedal stops including a Trombone, In the following year,

Thomas Elliott, a particular friend of Wesley's, built a large organ in

York Minster, Rather than put 16 ft. stops on the manuals he extended the manual compass down to CCC (one octave lower than the modern compass, and a fifth lower than the usual compass in England at that time), and built a pedal organ which contained no fewer than four 32 ft, stops, one of them a reed called a Sackbut. The most famous of these early "music mills" as their critics called them, was the organ at Christ Church New• gate Street, rebuilt in 1835 by William Hill, Elliott's son-in-tew and partner until Elliott died in 1832, under the direction of Henry Gauntlett, another friend of Samuel Wesley, to whom Wesley dedicated one of his later voluntaries. Mendelssohn and Wesley both played this organ on September

12th 1837.

It will be seen that Wesley was closely associated with the principal figures in this movement, Thomas Elliott, William Hill and

Henry Gauntlett, but unfortunately there is no direct evidence to show whether he took an active interest in these developments, or even whether he approved of them. Nevertheless the indirect evidence suggests that he did approve, and the fact that he was a close friend of Elliott and Gauntlett at the least, demonstrates the possibility that he was active in formulating these new ideas on English organ design. As the chief apostle in England for the music of J.S.Bach, which by the 1820s was making some headway, he provided a good reason for the development of pedal orgrans in this country. His own orgran music consistently uses every resource which the orgran he knew could offer him, and in one of his letters to Benjamin Jacobs (No.IV of those edited by Eliza Wesley) he writes:

"You may also tell Elliott that I will dine with him on some day between the 20th and 27th as desired, although I do not love 'a little Church Organ*. 25

"Perhaps this is only an Antiphrasis, and that he and you mean a great one."

Perhaps the history of the English organ during Samuel Wesley's

lifetime can best be siommed up by reference to the organ at Christ Church

Newgate. I give-two specifications-dating from 1800 and 1835, The first

is taken from Notes on English Organs of the period 1800-10 ... taken

chiefly from the manuscript of Henry Leffler, published in 1911, The

organ was originally built by Renatus Harris in 1690. Leffler believed

that only the Great and Choir Organs dated from this time, and that the

Swell was added later, but he offers no further information on this point.

However, looking at all three departments of the 1800 organ, apart from

the fact that the third manual is a Swell rather than an Echo, the whole

could easily have been built, just as it stood, in 1690, Nevertheless

it is significant that the Swell Cornet is out of action.

Some time soon after this the organ was rebuilt by Elliott and

Hill, but unfortunately there is no available information about it. In

any case in 1835 William Hill radically rebuilt the organ once more, this

time under the direction of Henry Gauntlett, The most obvious change is

the introduction of a massive pedal organ but it will be noted that the

pedal pipes covered only one octave, the pedal keys operating on the

Great organ for the rest. The manual compass has been shortened at the

lower end from GGG to CC, thus conforming with the German organs known

to Bach. The Swell organ now has the same compass as the other two man• uals, and both Great and Swell have 16 ft. stops. In fact the Swell is now the second manual, rather than the Choir, as is normal today. The

Great now has a powerful group of reeds at 16 ft,, 8 ft,, and 4 ft, pitches whereas in 1800 it had one Trumpet which operated only in the

treble register. There is no sign of a Cornet anywhere on the 1835 organ. This was the organ which set the pattern in the years after

Wesley's death, except in the matter of the Pedal organ which developed along much less adventurous lines. Wesley's or gran music was overtaken 26 within his own lifetime and could already be called, along with its con• temporaries, "old-fashioned" by Hopkins and Rimbault in their famous work

The Organ, its History and Construction of 1855

The or gran of Christ Church Newgrate

In 1800 In 1835

Great Organ

Double Open Diapason 16»

Open Diapason I 8»

Open Diapason 8« Open Diapason II 8»

Stopped Diapason 8« Stopped Diapason 8'

Principal • 4' Principal 4«

Twelfth 2f' Twelfth 2f'

Fifteenth 2' Fifteenth 2»

Tierce Sesquialtera V ranks

Sesquialtera III ranks Mixture V ranks

Furniture III ranks Doublette II ranks

Cornet (treble to mid C) V ranks Double Trumpet 16»

Trumpet ("down to 8« Posavine 8» middle C, the bass has been stop'd up") Clarion 4«

Swell Organ

Double Diapason 16'

Open Diapason 8» Open Diapason 8'

Stopped Diapason 8' Stopped Diapason 8»

I^incipal 4'

Flageolet 4'

Fifteenth 2«

Mixture V ranks

Cornet ("draws but does not speak") Horn 8'

Trumpet 8« Trumpet 8' 27

Hautboy 8« Oboe 8'

Clarion 4'

Choir Organ

Open Diapason 8'

Stopped Diapason 8' Stopped Diapason 8«

Principal 4« Principal 4'

Flute 4' Stopped Flute 4'

Fifteenth 2» Fifteenth 2«

Vox Humana 8'

Pedal Organ

Great Diapason (Wood) 16'

Open Diapason (Wood) 16'

Open Diapason (Metal) 16'

Principal 8'

Twelfth 5^'

Fifteenth 4'

Sesquialtera VI ranks

Mixture V ranks

Posaune 16'

Clarion 8'

EXAMPLE I

(see page 29)

Different interpretations of. the direction "Swell" in Samuel

Wesley's organ music.

A, No, 2 of Twelve Short Pieces

Swell indicating a solo (on a reed stop with Stopped Diapason) with

"expression".

B, Voluntary in D Op,6 No.5

The left hand seems to be on the Stopped Diapason only because of the

Swell's limited compass. The two manuals therefore seem to require matching rather than contrasting. Note especially how the suspended F 28 sharp in .the Swell part of the first bar resolves onto an E played on the Stopped Diapason.

. C. No. 1 of Six Introductory Movements.

Both hands are on the Swell, indicating Diapasons (perhaps with Princ• ipal) and "expression".

Do Two examples of the term '"Full Swell",

(i) Voluntary in D (composed 1817), 3rd movement,

(ii) Voluntary No. 6 dedicated to John Harding, 1st movement. 29

3

A. 4 . n I i i

Fuji 30

CHAPTER III

A GENERAL SURVEY OF ENGLISH (StGAN MUSIC 1800-1840

The general background agrainst which Samuel Wesley's orgran music

must be studied is a conservative one, English organ composers could

scarcely be said to have come to terms with the developments of the last

part of the eighteenth century. Even less could they be considered ready

to assimilate developments which were making the classical style a thing

of the past. And yet in many ways composers of the early nineteenth cen•

tury were rejecting the principles of Haydn and Mozart in favour of an

older style: perhaps the only English organ composers who were really

looking towards the future were those who, like Wesley, made j,S,Bach

their chief model.

The first forty years of the new century proved more productive

of good organ music in England than the last forty years of the old.

The most notable composers after Samuel Wesley were his elder brother

Charles (1757-1834), William Russell (1777-1813), Thomas Adams (1785-

1858) and William Crotch (1775-1847). In addition, for the first time

there was the influence of foreign organ composers, most notable being,

among the living, johann Rinck (1770-1846), and among the dead, J,S,Bach.

As one might expect of a period which hovered between menories of

Handel and anticipations of Mendelssohn, organ music exhibited a great variety of styles, and composers wandered freely from one to the other.

However, three main tendencies can be traced, the conservative, the gal- ant, and what one may term the "neo-baroque".

Music of the conservative type drew its inspiration from the organ concertos of Handel and the voluntaries of Stanley. That the latter were still popular in this period is shown by the appearance of a new edition in 1810. A particularly striking example is Matthew Camidge's

Op. 13 which consists of six concertos for organ solo, published about 1815,

Camidge, who was organist at York Minster, put the following note on the title page: 31

"N,B, The author in this work has endeavoured to imitate the particular style of music which has been so long admired namely that of Handel and Corelli, this acknowledgement will he hopes secure him from the critics' censure."

The beginning of the second movement of Op,13 No,2 (Ex. 2) would certainly have caused no great stir had it been written one hundred years earlier. Charles Wesley was as fervent a champion of Handel as his bro• ther was of Bach, and much of his orgran music shows a conservative approach. Each of his voluntaries dedicated to the Prince Regrent, which also appeared about 1815, contains a movement taken from Handel.

If Handel was the model for the organ composer in the early nine• teenth century when he was trying to write a fugue or a "French Overture" introduction, then surely the predominant influence on the rest of his music was that of the galant style, chiefly represented in England by

J.C.Bach. It was due to this influence that the popularity of the Corn• et, Trumpet and Flute had waned in favour of the Oboe, Cremona and Bass• oon. It was due to this influence that the Swell had become such an important part of the orgran, Galant ideas had become gradually more apparent in the English voluntary since the days of Stanley, and were shown particularly in a liking for gentle affected melodies which did not fit in with the traditional types of movement, the Diapason or Full Organ prelude, the fast solo movement, and the fugrue. Consequently the general tendency towards 1800 was to increase the number of movements in the vol• untary to make room for the new style. Later the influence of the new piano music, pioneered in England by Clementi, began to be felt, and generally English galant orgran music of the period can be divided into music where tone coloiir is of great importance and which is written under the influence of the orchestra, and music dominated by pianoforte

style where dynamics are more important than tone colour.

The voluntaries of William Russell, published in two sets of

twelve in 1804 and 1812, probably include the most successful examples

of the orchestral galant style. His voluntaries are written in up to 32

five movements, which include such new types as the march-and the short melodic character piece in addition to all the traditional forms. His Voluntary II from the 1812 set is one of the most interesting examples of the galant tendency (Ex. 3), Russell was almost certainly the first English composer to set organ music out on three staves, something which Wesley never did even though he was still writing organ music twenty years after Russell's death. This voluntary is in two movements, both completely galant in feeling. The first contrasts Oboe and Diapasons, while the sec• ond alternates Oboe and Cremona before using both in duet accompanied by the Diapasons played on the pedals (Ex. 4), It should be noted how much care Russell takes over his stop directions. He is not content simply to write "Diapasons" for example, but specifies Open or Stopped or both.

Russell's voluntaries are still plainly genuine organ music but

some of the more galant examples of the period giVe the impression of be•

ing better suited to the piano or orchestra. For instance, Thomas Adams'

Variations on Paesiello's Favoigite Air "Quant e Pui Bella" with their

frequent stop changes seem to foreshadow the orchestral transcriptions

of later in the century. Similarly there is a good deal of organ music

inspired by piano style which seems to make no concession to the char•

acter of the organ. A particularly bizarre example is the last of three

voluntaries by Samuel Webbe the younger, dedicated to Samuel Wesley. The

only indication other than on the title page, that the piece is for organ,

is the occasional use of the pedals. There are no stop directions, but merely forte and piano marks. The tradition of the multi-movement vol•

untary is abandoned in favour of a single movement in a crude sonata

form. Ex. 5 is the last page of the voluntary and consists mostly of a

cadenza.

An important development of the 1830s was the appearance of a mass of short orgfan pieces by German composers, especially Rinck, whose

Complete Practical Organ School was published in two English translations,

one possibly made by Wesley himself. These compositions were of the type 33

usually referred to as character pieces, although most of them were.sadly

lacking in that quality (Ex. 6). They were designed, to provide religious

background and to be as musically unobtrusive as possible: their influence

on English organ music in the nineteenth century was to be all too marked.

The third tendency, the neo-baroque, was based entirely on the dis•

covery by English organists of J.S.Bach. This was marked by a renewed

interest in the fug^ue, but composers' attempts were now based on the works of Bach, especially the 48 Preludes and Fugues, rather than on those of

Handel. There was a marked concentration on special contrapuntal skills,

combining themes, inversion, augmentation and diminution. The three com• posers most eminent in this group were Samuel Wesley himself, Thomas Adams,

and William Crotch. Adams* five-part fugue in F minor shows how closely

the latter two sometimes tried to imitate their master (Ex. 7). It comes from a set of six fugues dedicated to Henry May and published about 1820.

They prove that the "St. Anne" fugue had a powerful effect on at least one composer. Four of these fugues are in three sections, the subjects of the first two being combined in the third. The close relationship of the subject of Adams' fugfue to that of the "St. Anne" is plain enough, and of course both fugues are written in five parts. Some of Adams' subjects have the sound of Mendelssohn about them. The subject of his Fugue II from the same set of six certainly has that limpid quality which one associates with the nineteenth rather than earlier centuries (Ex. 8), while another

subject, from a set of twelve voluntaries (all but one of which are in the form of Prelude and Fugrue) published by Hodsoll, is not dissimilar to the fugue subject in Mendelssohn's Organ Sonata No,3 (Ex, 9). These Organ

Sonatas, with their sometimes disturbingly discrete treatment of baroque and post-classic features of style, are directly descended from the English organ music of earlier in the century, which is at least as mixed in style.

It should be remembered that Mendelssohn originally intended to call these

sonatas Voluntaries,

In his Elements of Musical Composition, published in 1812, William 34

Crotch made some remarks on the proper way of writing, orgfan voluntaries which typify the views of the more ardent (and more narrow-minded) "Bachists".

"Qrgran voluntaries should consist of fugues, with introductions for the full organ, upon the model of Sebastian Bach and Handel. Soft movements for the Diapason and Swell should be slow and sweet, or mournful and pathetic, and may be in the Ital• ian style of the seventeenth century. English voluntaries for the Trumpet, Echo, Voxhumane, Corn• et, Oboe and other solo stops, are too often vulgar trifling, and ridiculous; being equally void of science, taste, and that decorous gravity of style which should ever characterize church music."

Crotch's position can be summarised in the following five points, and allowing something for their pedantic and sanctimonious author, they represent the tendency to compose the works of Bach anew.

1. Emphasis on the Prelude and Fugue.

2. Emphasis on "science", the ability to bring off extraordinary technical feats in composition.

3. Complete rejection of the English Solo Voluntary tradition.

4a A degree of prettiness may be put into slow movements for the

Swell, but Crotch still prefers an antique style, "the Italian style of the seventeenth century."

5, Crotch»s "decorous gravity" appears to banish all liveliness from organ music composed for the church.

There is a strong temptation to link the efforts of Adams and

Crotch to re-establish the style of a composer who had been writing one hundred years before their time with the contemporary beginnings of the

Gothic Revival. In both cases there is the feeling of the unfitness of modern styles to church use, and the conviction that there is one style more fitted than any other which should be perpetuated for ever. 35

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EX.8 I'Mflylf (Ill/in? 10J 39

CHAPTER IV

A DIVISION OF WESLEY'S ORGAN MUSIC INTO FOUR PERIODS AND

A CONSIDERATION OF THE ORGAN MUSIC WRITTEN BEFORE 1800,

The great bulk of Wesley's organ works belongs to the nineteenth century rather than the eighteenth. Although from his youth Wesley was celebrated as an organist, it seems that it was only the study of Bach which prompted him to look seriously at the possibilities of the organ as a solo instrument. Without that impetus he might have presented a case, like that of Bruckner, of a composer whose output for his own chief instrument was minimal. Thus the turn of the century, bringing with it the inspiration of Bach, represents an important dividing line in Wesley's output of organ music, although the two sides are far from being of equal weight, either in the number of works or in their importance. The years before 1800 and the years after can in their turn be divided into two per• iods, making four periods in all. The divisions between the first three periods are stretches of inactivity, so far as organ composition is con• cerned, but there is no such division between the third and foxrrth periods, the difference in this case lying only in the music itself.

The first period covers a group of very youthful compositions dating from 1774 and 1775, comprising voluntaries, fugues and cornet pieces. The second period, running from then to 1800, is notable for the almost complete lack of any solo organ music. Then comes the influence of Bach and a renewed interest in orgran music resulting in the works of the third period, which runs from about 1800 to 1816. During these years

Wesley was particularly interested in writing large-scale organ works in the grand manner. The chief work of the third period is a set of twelve big voluntaries published at intervals throughout the period as his Opus 6.

Two other important large-scale organ works from this period are the

Duet in C of 1812, and the Full Voliintary in D minor, published with his

TXyelve Short Pieces in 1817, Large-scale works written at the same time, but outside the scope of this thesis, include at least one symphony (that 40

in B flat of 1802), a magnificent Piano Sonata in D minor, published in

1808, and the motet In Exitu Israel, composed in 1810. The fourth period covers the remainder of Wesley's life, that is up to 1837, and is marked by a much greater diversity of type in his organ works. Wesley's interest

in writing grand voluntaries continued into his sixties but now there was an opposite tendency at work, the tendency to concentrate rather than ex• pand. This was shown by a new interest in the possibilities of the short character piece, first and most brilliantly revealed in the Twelve Short

Pieces, composed in 1816. The Short Piece had a marked influence on Wes• ley's fourth period voluntaries. The largest examples often included movements of the "Short Piece" type, while in other voluntaries the same

influence led to a greater compactness reaching its most extreme form in

the Six Organ Voluntaries Composed for the Use of Young Organists, pub• lished late in 1831 or early in 1832. The characteristics of Wesley's four periods of organ composition can be summarised as follows:

I 1766-80 juvenile attempts at imitation of older composers.

II 1780-1800 Very little interest in writing for the organ.

Ill 1800-16 Concentration on large-scale organ works.

IV 1816-37 Interest in both large and small scale forms,

the latter having some influence on the former.

It is probable that all the surviving organ works of Wesley's

first period were written within a few months of each other in 1774 and

1775. They amount to four fugues, two voluntaries and three pieces for

Cornet, They are remarkable enough as the products of an eight year old

composer, but their intrinsic value is small. One sees in them that tal•

ent for mimicry which is natural in children, applied to music. All the

conventions of mid-eighteenth century organ music, with which Wesley must

have been surrounded from birth, are there. The voluntaries include a

typical Diapason movement and conventionally appropriate music for the

Trumpet and Cornet stops with their Echo equivalents. There is a move•

ment in the minor for Swell written in the approved "pathetic" style. 41

suited to crescendi and diminuendi, which reminds one of Daines Barring-

ton's account of Wfesley»s improvising a similar piece, on the Swell in that same year. . Three of the four fugues are written on subjects which

are eig^iteenth century "types". One has a subject in triple time beginn•

ing with repeated quavers, the subject of Fugue No.3 is derived from the descending chromatic scale, while that of the last is built on a sequence

and belongs to a type frequently used by Stanley (Ex, 10). Barrington, .

in this case talking of the young Wesley as an extemporiser, refers to

his habit, natural in one of his age, of mimicking his older contempor•

aries!.

"After he had seen or heard a few pieces of any com• poser, he was fully possessed of his peculiarities, which, if at all striking, he could instantly imitate at the word of command, as Wjell as the general flow and turn of the composition. Thus I have heard him frequently play extemporary lessons, which, without prejudice to their musical names, might have been supposed those of Abel, Vento, Schobert and (J.Ci) Bach,"^

Although he was able to reproduce the essential characteristics

of the music he hieard with such astonishing facility, the young composer

was not always so secure in the technical details of composition. Hiere

are occasional awkward-sounding passages caused by such failings as con•

secutive octaves and fifths or unconvincing treatment of suspensions

(Ex.11).

The greatest degree of originality is to be found in the structure

of these early pieces, and in one or two cases- in the use of the stops.

One of the pieces .for Cornet alternates that-stop,with the Stopped Dia•

pason rather than the conventional Echo Cornet, The end of the Volun- -

tary in D shows originality, both in design and in registration. For the

most part it is a perfectly conventional Trumpet voluntary with a slow

movement for Diapasons followed by a quicker movement for Trumpet and

Echo Trumpet over a Diapason Bass, However, with childish enthusiasm,

Wesley then directs the player to" "pull out all the Trumpets you have

on the organ" for a Pomposo coda (Ex.12) which is in octaves throughout. 42

and which is almost certainly unique in the English Voluntary both as a

structural device and in its use of .the Trumpets, The last movement of

the Voluntary in C is equally experimental, being in four sections, all

to be played Full Organ, alternating Adagio and Allegro. The first three

sections are each only five or six bars long, only the final Allegro sect•

ion being a little more extended. The second fugue is in a Da Capo patt• ern, the middle section consisting of four bars of homophonic writing in the relative minor.

For completeness two other pieces which are listed among Wesley's early organ works by the British Museum should be mentioned. Both are to be found in Add. Ms. 35039, The first is described, apparently by Eliza

Wesley, as "probably the first attempt at composing a voluntary", but in fact it is an incomplete copy of Stanley's Op.7 No.l. The other is an

Overture in G, composed in January 1775. It shows no sign of having been conceived for the organ, but seems to be a rough sketch for an orchestral composition. Towards the end there are references to "bassoons" and

"tutti".

The characteristic style of Wesley's second period was galant.

He wrote a good deal of music for the piano, and also vocal music for the

Roman liturgy. Perhaps his greatest work of the period is the Mass which he dedicated to the Pope in 1784. This work, written in the grand manner, uses the regular g^alant idiom of the time, and Burney likened the style to that of Pergolesi. It seems that in common with his greater contem• poraries Wesley did not consider the orgran suitable to the new style of music. Certainly there is only one solo organ work extant from this per•

iod, and even this solitary example seems to be more suited to the piano

in many places than the organ. It is a Volxmtary in D, completed on May

16th 1788, and consists of two movements, an Andante Maestoso which is a complete movement in binary form, and a long fugal Presto. The first movement has a measure of grandeur. It is marked Full at the beginning

and then alternates Forte and Piano markings. It is dominated by a 43 dotted rhythm, a feature shared with many of Wesley's later first move• ments, which is grand and dramatic in the Forte sections, but softened with a degree of galant grace in the Piano passages. In several places Wesley shows some harmonic resource in obtaining dramatic effects, for instance the passage at bar 37 (Ex.13). This opening movement is an effective piece of organ music, but the second movement is less satis• factory and raises serious doubts as to whether this is a true organ work. It is a double fugue, very freely treated and some ten pages long. One presumes it is meant to be taken extremely fast in view of the four bar rest to be found near the end. There are none of the usual organ• ist's directions, while passages such as that in Ex,14 are not the stuff of eighteenth century organ style. It can only be concluded that this particular voluntary started out as organ music and finished as piano music.

More important than the Voluntary of 1788 is the music for orgran

with accompaniment.' There are traces of five works by Wesley for organ

and orchestra, and ironically the three which are still complete all be•

long to the second period, which is so poor in solo organ music. In

eighteenth century England the orgran tended to be treated as a different

instrument when it was united with an orchestra. The organs available

in the places where organ concertos were likely to be required, for in•

stance the concert room in the house in Chesterfield Street or the theatre in Covent Garden, were extremely small, and could be treated in much the same way as a piano or a harpsichord, provided the texture remained reas• onably clear.. Thus the probliem of style which so affected late eighteenth century orgran music in the church was not apparent in the concert room.

Here it could follow the developments of pianoforte style with very little adaptation, at least until the end of the century.

The earliest of Wesley's surviving works for orchestra with an organ part is the Sinfonia Obligate per violino, organo e violoncello, composed in 1781 when W&sley was fifteen. It was performed at a Chester• field Street subscription concert on January 31st 1782, and probably 44

repeated at later concerts in May of the same year and in April 1783. The organ is somewhat less prominent than the violin and 'cello which both have very demanding parts, but the music which it plays well illu• strates the lack of any stylistic cleavage between the organ as a concerto instrument and the pianoforte or harpsichord (Ex.15). Since Samuel played the violin concertos and Charles the organ concertos in the Chesterfield Street concerts, Samuel may well have played the violin solo in this symphony rather than the organ. If so, he must have been a fine violin• ist. The symphony is in three movements, with a particularly charming slow movement for strings alone with no solo parts. Strangely, the fin• ale anticipates in one of its themes the last movement of Mozart's Con• certo K.414, composed in the following year (Ex. 16).

Wesley's organ concertos have suffered cruelly from the disappear•

ance of vital parts which make realistic reconstruction impossible. Scores

or orchestral parts of four concertos are to be found in the British Museum,

their dates ranging approximately from 1787 to 1815, but only in the first

two concertos are the organ parts still extant.

The first of these works is in A major. It bears no date, but

the British Museum estimate the date of the paper as 1787. In fact it

is entitled Quintette, bit it is clearly an organ concerto nonetheless.

Indeed the "quintet" of organ and strings is joined in the finale by two horns. Much more substantial than this decidedly minor work, is the second concerto. It was completed on March 22nd 1800, and Wesley almost certainly performed it during a performance of Haydn's Creation under

Salomon at Covent Garden on April 21st. The specification of the organ which Wesley played is preserved and serves as a good example of the type of instrument for which organ concertos were composed. 3

1 manual GG to d (55 notes)

Open Diapason 8 Stopped Diapason 8

Principal 4 Twelfth 2f

Fifteenth 2 Tierce if- 5 Trumpet 8 45

In 1808 both theatre and organ were burned down. The new theatre was built, in 1809 and equipped with an organ almost identical to its pre• decessor.

The concerto seems originally to have been written in the conven• tional three movements. There is nothing in the first movement other than the necessarily very simple directions for registration to suggest that it is not part of a piano concerto. In the second movement, and to a lesser extent the third, the prevalence of a plain chordal texture makes more obvious demands on the orgran's extra sustaining power. The last movement is a set of variations on an attractive hornpipe tune

(Ex,l7) which Wesley later published in an az>rangement for piano. The organ is joined by a solo violin on almost equal terms.

In 1808, after hearing some of Bach's fugues arranged for string quartet by Horn, Wesley, as we learn from a letter to Benjamin • 2

Jacobs, conceived the idea of arranging them for orchestra. He wrote of the "glorious effect" which the string quartet versions produced and added, "What must they do in a full Orchestra?" Consequently, when he took his concerto to the Tamworth Music Meeting in 1809, Wesley inserted the fugue in D from Book I of the 48 between the second and third move• ments. He played the entire fugue as an organ solo, and then repeated it with an orchestra of horns, trumpets, trombones, kettledrums and strings. Apart from the fugue, the trumpets, trombones and kettledrimis play only at the end of the last movement, Wesley seems to have been well pleased with the reception accorded both to the concerto and to the fuerue. In a letter written to Benjamin Jacobs a few days after the performance, he writes:

"... the effect of the Fugue among the Orchestra was such that they were perpetually humming the Subject whenever I met any of them in the streets, either by Day or by Night."

Endnotes

1. Daines Barrington Miscellanies 1781. 46

2. Letter III of Letters of Samuel Wesley to Mr. Jacobs, ed. Eliza Wesley.

3. Letter XIII of Letters of Samuel Wesley to Mr. Jacobs, ed, Eliza Wesley. 47

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EX. a 48

EX.B -fl : , Vy 3s3_J—^ 1 ^ •• n p.... -f—tr

lit

— /.Q^M g ^ "tfy .-U'TT^

: lrs.il 0—It - J. fJ^ ' ^ ^ 1 : — 1 i

Pi

EX.17 11 i 50

CaiAPTER V

THE THIRD PERIOD AND OPUS 6

Wesley was one of the first composers to cultivate a deep know•

ledge of old music. During his Roman Catholic period in the 1780s he

studied Gregorian Chant and sixteenth century polyphony, and both these

ancient musical styles had a permanent effect on his church music. Sim•

ilarly when he became acquainted with the music of J.S.Bach, he made the

rest of his life a crusade on behalf of "Saint Sebastian", as he called

him. There can be little doubt that to Wesley the publicising of Bach

was much more important than the fate of his own music.

It seems certain that Bach's keyboard music provided the inspir•

ation for the large-scale organ works of Wesley's third period, heralded

by the first of his twelve voliuitaries OPUS 6. These volvmtaries, his

first mature attempt at writing solo orgran music, dominate the third per•

iod and represent the first fruits of his painstaking and systematic study

of J.S.Bach. A subsidiary influence may have been the first set of voliin-

taries published by his friend William Russell in 1804, to which both

Charles and Samuel Wesley subscribed, but it is quite likely that Samuel had already started .writing his Qpus 6 by then.

Taken as a whole. Opus 6 is by far the largest of Samuel Wesley's organ works, and must take a position in his output for the organ of the first importance. It is therefore especially unfortunate that these vol• untaries have proved so difficult to date. The earliest possible date is

1800, since Op.4 appeared in 1799 and Op.5 is thought to have been published about 1800, but estimates vary from 1800 in Die Musik in Geschichte und

Gegenwart, and 1805 in the British Museum catalogue, to 1820-1830 in

Peter Williams' preface to his modern edition of Op.6 No.3.

The first fact which seems fairly evident is that the whole of

Opus 6 did not appear at the same time. The volvintaries were published separately by two different firms with three different title-page designs.

William Hodsoll published the first six. Numbers 7 to 10 were then 51

published, with a new title page, by Robert Birchall. Finally William Hod•

soll published the last two. No. 11 with Birchall's title page and No. 12

with another new title page.

Thus each voluntary really needs to be dated separately, but some

guidance is given by. two voluntaries which can accurately be dated. The

first of these is Voluntary No, 7, the first published by Birchall. This

is advertised in a publisher's catalogue mainly devoted to piano music,

which is in the possession of the British Museum (Hirsch IV iiii (2). ).

The British Museum estimate the date of this catalogue as 1806, but compar•

ison with another Birchall catalogue, definitely dated 1806, shows the first

one to be slightly later, either late 1806 or 1807, The two facts that Wes•

ley's voluntaries are not mentioned in the earlier catalogue and his eighth

voluntary is not mentioned in the later catalogue suggest that the seventh

voluntary had only just been published. This establishes that Voluntary

No. 7 was published in late 1806 or 1807,

The second voluntary which can be dated with certainty is No, 10,

This is the only part of Opus 6 which still exists in autograph. It is dated January 1814, and was performed by Benjamin Jacobs at the Surrey Chap• el as "New Voluntary No, 10" on 24th May the same year. That it was given the number 10 shows that the previous nine had already been published and it seems very probable that No. 10 had also been published by the time

Jacobs performed it.

Finally there are reasons, which will be discussed at greater lengfth later, to suppose that 0Pf6 No.12 was. published after 1817, The basic reason for this supposition is that there is a voluntary in manuscript dated Nov• ember 1817 which is headed "Voluntary I2th", suggesting that this was orig• inally intended to be Op,6 No,12, but was for some reason replaced. The voluntaries of 1817 and Op, 6 No,12 will be discussed in Chapter IX, since there are internal reasons for placing them in Wesley's fourth period.

It is therefore established that the first seven voluntaries had appeared by 1807, that voluntaries 8 and 9 were published between 1807 and 52

1813, the tenth voluntary in 1814, the eleventh between 1814 and 1817, and the twelfth after 1817. It should be mentioned, since this has no doubt added to the past confusion, that when Hodsoll published the twelfth volun• tary he also reissued the whole set in two books, which are advertised on the title page of Voluntary No.12.

The voluntaries of Opus 6 should not be considered in isolation from the small number of other I'arge-scale organ works which are their contempor• aries, the Full Voluntary in D minor which was published with the Twelve

Short Pieces in 1817, the Duet in C, written in 1812, and the smaller duet, written in 1814 as a prelude-to a foiu* hands arrangement ,of Bach's "St.Anne" fugue.

It may be helpful at this point to list the works which are to be considered in the following two chapters: Publisher Date of Publication

Voluntary in D minor Opo 6 No.l

Voluntary in C Op. 6 No.2

Voluntary in C minor Op. 6 No.3 Hodsoll not later than 1806 Voluntary in G minor Op. 6 No.4

Voluntary in D Op. 6 No,5

Voluntary in C Op. 6 No.6_ 1806/7 Voluntary in E flat Qp. 6 No,7

Voluntary in D Op, 6 No.8 — Birchall -1807-13

Voluntary in G minor Op. 6 No.9_ Composed 1812 Duet in C Unpublished 1814 Voluntary in F Op. 6 No. 10 Birchall Unpublished Composed 1814 Prelude (Duet) to the "St.Anne" fugue 1814-17 Voluntary in A Op. 6 No.11 Hodsoll

Clenenti 1817 Full Voluntary in D minor

All the twelve voluntaries in this list are marked by a spirit of

hig'h seriousness. There is no doubt that Wesley intended them to be major

works. This matches his attitude both to the organ, his own main instrument. 53 and to J,S,Bach under whose shadow he felt himself to be working, for he spoke of his work as an organist and especially as an interpreter of Bach's music as a divine mission. The other immediately discernible feature of these voluntaries is their considerable technical difficulty. A general tend• ency for English organ music of the early nineteenth century to make greater technical demands on the player is first seen in the music of Russell and

Wesley. In both cases this was no doubt encouraged by the composers' except• ional keyboard skills, and, in Wesley's case at least, by the even greater difficulties to be encountered in Bach.

Something has already been said of the tremendous variety of style to be seen in English organ music of the period, and the contrasts to be seen in the work of other composers are equally apparent in Wesley's music.

The contrast between galant and baroque styles, however, is most apparent in the first half of Opus 6, and then, especially towards the middle vol- luitaries, more between voluntaries than between the individual movements of any single voluntary. Wesley's greatest difficulty lies in his melodic writing, which, at the time when he was writing the first voluntaries of

Opus 6, still abounded in the rather cloying chromatic graces of J.C.Bach,

It cannot be said that the opening of the second movement of Op,6 is entirely at ease in the same voluntary as the forthrii^t subject of the fugue that is the following movement (Ex, 18), However, in his later organ works, isesley, no doubt helped by a greater knowledge of J,S.Bach«s non-fugal music, evolved a more consistent personal style which owes something to all the influences he felt in his early maturity.

In his choice of keys Wesley is surprisingly cautious. The study of j,S,Bach generally encouraged composers to experiment with more extreme keys. Adams' two fugfues in F minor have already been mentioned, and there is another fugue of his, written in 1810 and never published, which is in

D flat. Russell, who was writing his voluntaries at the same time as Wesley was writing his OPUs 6, also showed some interest in the less common keys, and Wesley himself composed a set of preludes for the piano in all twenty- four major and minor keys. Yet, out of the fourteen organ works just listed 54

no less than eleven are in the keys of C, D or G. Only seven of the forty

or so voluntaries written by Wesley which still survive have key signatures

of three sharps or flats, and there is just one movement written in E major.

The reason for Wesley's conservatism in this respect lies in the fact that

until well after his death, English organs continued to be tuned in mean

tone temperament.

Half of the voluntaries (Op. 6 Nos. 1-11, the Full Voluntary in D

minor) are in two movements. Of the remaining six, four are in three move•

ments and two have four movements. Nine of the voluntaries contain fugues,

and in each case the fugue forms the climax of the voluntary. Only in Op,6

No,5 is there no important fugal element in any of the movements. Generally

they represent a reversal of the late eighteenth century trend towards

multiplying the number of movements in a voluntary, Wesley's two most im•

portant contemporaries writing orgran voluntaries between 1800 and 1815,

Charles Wesley and William Russell, still generally preferred the voluntary

in three or four movements. In particular the frequent use of the Prelude

and Fugue, and the special emphasis on the fugue generally, was something

of a reaction, influenced no doubt by the Forty eight Preludes and Fugues

and foreshadowing' the work of slightly later Bach enthusiasts, such as

Crotch and Adams.

Five of the six two movement voluntaries are Preludes and Fugues

(Opus 6 Nos. 3, 8, 9 and 11 and the Full Voluntary) while the sixth C0p,6

Nto. 6) is similar except that the second movement combines fugue with

elements of rondo and variations. All the fugfues are for Full Organ and

there is always considerable use of Full Organ in the preludes, thus creat•

ing a clear link with the eighteenth century Full Voluntary which was also a Prelude and Fugue, The Preludes have a number of features in common. They all make prominent use of dotted rhythms; they all end on half closes; and all except Op,6 No, 3 have clear ternary designs marked by a strong dynamic contrast, either a loud section framed by quiet outer sections, or the other way about. 55

The three movement voluntaries are the first, fourth, fifth and sev• enth in Opus 6, In each case at least two movements are joined by a half close, so that there are never more than two musical "spans". This was Wesley's usual practice in three movement voluntaries. Op, 6 Nos.l and 7 start with a movement for Diapasons only, leading through a louder second movement to a final fugue which is the first point at which Full Organ is used. Op, 6 No, 4 also opens quietly, using Diapasons and Swell, but here the fugue comes second, and the voluntary ends with a Trumpet movement. Op* 6 No, 5 is constructed in a particularly unusual way,. An almost symphon• ic slow introduction leads into a faster, louder movement which, in turn leads through a half close to a theme and two variations. Thus all three movements are joined in one span, while the inclusion of a set of variations in a voluntary is, as far as I know, unique.

The two four movement voluntaries. Op, 6 Nbs 2 and 10, both follow

the traditional slow-fast-slow-fast pattern with the third movement in the

relative minor. In both cases the slow movements are quiet and the fast

movements loud, but there is a difference of balance in that the main move•

ment of Voluntary No, 2 is the second, while the tenth voluntary reaches

its climax in the fourth movement, a particularly fine fugue,

Wesley's registration follows eighteenth centiu>y convention in the

letter more than the spirit. Essentially it is marked by limited use of

solo stops and greater care in specifying the use of chorus stops. Perhaps the greatest difference between the voluntaries of Russell and those of Wes• ley is in the use of solo stops, Russell was the last composer to make worthwhile use of the extended solo movement in voluntaries, but Wesley, as as has already been noted, was ill at ease with straightforward melody in his earlier organ works, and consequently avoided solo stops as far as poss• ible. There is only one full-scale solo movement in the whole of Opus 6, the movement for Trumpet and Swell (Echo) which completes Voluntary No, 4,

The only other complete solo movement in Opus 6 is that for Cremona or

Dulciana which concludes the twelfth voluntary, but this is really an early 56

example in Wesley's work of the short character piece, in. which he made his

most significant.use of the solo stops, finding a place in the voluntary.

Otherwise solo stops make only brief appearances in these voluntaries. The

most frequent solo direction is "Swell", and its interpretation has already

been considered in Chapter II, Other examples are the variation in Op.6 No.5

for Flute or Dulciana and the fanfares at the beginning of Op,6 No. 8 for

Full Organ with Trumpet. Finally it may be noted that there is not one

note for the Cornet in Qpus 6, the Full Voluntary, or either of the duets.

The small amount of solo music naturally leads to greater emphasis

on chorus work, and IVesley takes great care in specifying the exact com•

bination that he wants. The direction "Full Organ" is frequently quali•

fied by "with" or "without Triimpet". In the first and tenth voluntaries he asks for "Diapasons, Principal and Fifteenth" on the Great, while the

second movement of the seventh voluntary requires a "Mixture" which seems to mean something similar since in one of the Twelve Short Pieces (No.6), he asks for "a Mixture of Diapasons, Principal and Fifteenth",

Wesley was much less bold in the use of pedals than Russell. In the whole of Opus 6, the Full Voluntary and the duets there are only six

separate uses of the pedals. In the fifth, tenth and twelfth voluntaries of Opus 6, and the last movement of the Grand Duet, the pedal is used to hold a single dominant pedal point. In Op, 6 No, 6 there is a short slow- moving pedal passage, but only in the first movement of the Full Voluntary is there a genuine fully-fledged pedal part.

Opus 6, being written over a period of some twenty years, shows a considerable development of style. For the purpose of a closer examination it will be advisable to split the voluntaries into two groups of six, the division that was made when Hodsoll published them complete in about 1820.

The first six, which will be considered in Chapter VI, appear to have been written fairly close together and show the most marked contrasts of style between baroque and galant. They also make less use of the fugue than the later voluntaries, there being only two regular fugues. The second group 57 of six are much more spread out, their date of composition ranging approx• imately from 1806 to 1818. They are contemporary with at least three other voluntaries by Wesley and extend into his fourth period. Those that lie within the third period. Voluntaries 7-11 and also the Full Voluntary are marked by a more integrated style and a particular emphasis on the Prelude and Fugue. They will be considered in Chapter VII, 58

-K—EV

6^ 59

CHAPTER VI

THE FIRST . PART OF OPUS 6

Wesley wrote very few examples of the traditional Diapason move•

ment. He generally preferred to alternate the Diapasons with passages

for the Swell, which was more in the modern manner. It is consequently-

easy to see the first movement of Op, 6 No, 1, which is for Diapasons

throughout, as the result of the composer's keeping cautiously close to

mid-eighteenth century convention in his first published work for the

organ. However, a closer inspection of the movement (Ex, 19) reveals

features far from typical of the traditional Diapason movement. The four-

part texture, rich in dissonance, is in strong contrast to the clear Cor-

ellian three-part texture normally associated with Diapason music, even

in the voluntaries of William Russell. Wesley carefully avoids any

suggestion of a final cadence before reaching a dominant pedal at bar 19

which continues through the remaining seven bars. This is another respect

in which he departs from English convention. Diapason movements frequent•

ly ended on a half close, but never over an extended pedal. The harmonic

idiom, depending on incidental dissonance caused by the "haphazard" clash

of part with part rather than carefully prepared and predictable suspens•

ions, is derived more from J,S,Bach than from Stanley, The long dominant

pedal with the series of dissonant chords running above it also suggests

the influence of Bach,

The more galant nature of the second movement has already been

illustrated in Ex. 18. The minor mode of the first movement is replaced by the major in an Allegro Moderate, written in a simple sonata form with• out repeats. Although much of the melodic decoration is galant, there is a basically baroque element in the regular harmonic movement and the tex• ture. In the accompaniments there is no use of the broken chord figurat• ions which are so characteristic of the gfalant style. Typical of the more baroque features which prevent the movement from seeming completely out of place are the passage which does duty for the second group (Ex. 20) and the circle of fifths which leads, with a certain skill in that a very well - 60

prepared move still comes as a surprise, into the recapitulation (Ex,21).

Five bars before the end there is a pause which may indicate a short

cadenza.

The climax of the voluntary, in loudness, speed, and musical

weight, is the third and last movement, a fugfue marked Spiritoso. Built

on a subject with the feel of the 48 about it, it lasts eig^ity-four bars

and maintains the vigour of its opening almost to the end. It is con•

structed with great care. After a three part exposition, the further

entries of the subject trace a circle of fifths running downwards from

B minor to G before rising again to A and settling on D for the final

entry. The entry which is the turning point in this scheme, that in G,

is preceded by a dramatic preparation (Ex,22) which combines the first

three notes of the subject with a rushing scale figure and stands out

from the rest of the fugue by reason of its almost homophonic charact•

er. The final entry of the subject in bar 70 is the climax of . a con•

sistently vigorous and closely constructed fugue. However, the final

part of the movement is somewhat strange and certainly poses a serious

problem in performance, Wesley, in common with most contemporary writ•

ers of fugues, especially those that had studied J,S.Bach, was fond of

introducing contrapuntal tricks such as inversions, augmentations and

stretti into his fugues. In this case he rounds the fugrue off with an

inversion of the subject, duly labelled, in the soprano. The effect is

a little square because the parts tend to move together, but in fact at

this Juncture it is quite effective and brings the music neatly to a

halt on a dominant seventh. Then follows a passage (Ex.23) of eleven bars marked Adagio, each bar consisting of one single thickly-scored

chord. It is hard to believe that one is supposed to play this passage

exactly as directed, and Francis Routh in his book Early English Organ

Music suggests that the chords are meant to be used as the basis for

improvisation. However, it must be said against this that neither in

this instance nor in the few similar cases, mostly dating from the 1830s, 61 does Wesley give any hint that improvisation is expected, and there is no eighteenth centiary convention of "improvisation chords" at the end of organ fugues as Francis Routh implies. The successions of chords in harp• sichord music marked "arpegfgio" are so distinctly a harpsichord effect that they can hardly be invoked in this case. Furthermore, Wesley's careful filling in of each chord and, presumably, careful application of ties could not be retained in an improvised version. There remains the by no means untenable musical argfument that an improvisation might sound less unpleasant than the bare chords.

The player therefore has to choose from two options. He may make these last eleven bars the basis of an improvisation, which may be difficult in practice; or else he can play them exactly as written, in which case he may assume that the Adagio indicates what the passage will sound like anyway rather than any great slowing of the crotchet beat.

A very common way of ending an eighteenth century fugue, of course, was, after a pause on a discord, either a diminished seventh or a dominant seventh, to resolve it with a short cadential formula marked Adagio, perhaps the most likely explanation is that Wesley was, in his search for grandeur, unwisely extending this technique. However this passage is played, it is at least plain that Wesley has failed to bring this fugue to a satisfactory conclusion. The most difficult part of writing a fugue for most composers, especially since 1750, is finishing it, and at this stage Wesley was not a match for the task.

In the first half of Qpus 6, Voluntaries 2 and 4 are generally less interesting than the others, while Voluntaries 3, 5 and 6 repre• sent most clearly the contrast.of galant and baroque in Wesley's earl• ier organ music, and also a remarkable attempt to combine the two. The second voluntary, in C major, is in four movements, of which the most interesting are the last two, a Larghetto in A minor, and an Allegro

Moderate. Both are short movements which point ahead to his later, very successful, development of the short character piece. The Larghetto is 62

a pretty piece.in a concise binary form for Swell (mostly in two parts)

with Diapason accompaniment; the Allegro Moderate, also in binary form,

puts an attractive melody over a perpetuum mobile bass running in semi•

quavers.

The fourth voluntary is built round a fugal piece based on the

canon Non Nobis Domine, This is introduced by a slow movement in the

minor mode for Diapasons and Swell, and followed by the only full-scale

solo movement to be found in Opus 6, The directions for registration

are not entirely clear, but it seems that Wesley's use of his solo stops,

a Trumpet and an echo Tlrumpet on the Swell, is far from conventional.

Rather than using one or perhaps two Trumpet parts over a Diapason bass,

Wesley appears to use the Trumpet for all three parts, and certainly

there are Trumpet solos in the bass register. The Swell Trumpet does

not echo what the Trumpet has already played, its conventional function,

but is rather heard in dialogue with it. Previous composers had re•

stricted their organ "mimpets to the notes of the harmonic series in

order to obtain a closer imitation of the natural triampet, but Wesley

casts this convention aside, although he is not yet ready to sacrifice

the usual fanfare music associated with the trumpet. At about the same

time as Wesley was writing this Trumpet movement Russell also gave up the

direct imitation of the natural trumpet when he wrote what was almost cer•

tainly the first Trumpet movement in the minor mode.

The third and fifth voluntaries stand at opposite extremes in

the development of Wesley's organ style. The third voluntary is the only

one in the first part of Opus 6 written in the form of a Prelude and Fugue,

the fugrue being one of his most completely baroque movements. The fifth

volvintary on the other hand is the only work in the whole of Opus 6 in which none of the movements has an important fugal element. Here he is much more concerned to exploit the varied tone coloxirs of the organ and

the style is much more galant. Then comes the remarkable sixth volun• tary, which in some places .is quite as baroque as the third, and in others 63

at least as galant as the fifth.

These three voluntaries are all alike in opening with grandiose

preludes in a "symphonic" style using a good deal of Full Organ. The

style is very dramatic, with strong dynamic contrasts, and sudden inter• ruptions and silences. The contrast between these introductions and

the solemn first movement of an eighteenth century voluntary, or for that matter, the almost unassiuning preludes to QP* 6 Nos. 1, 2 and 4, could not be more marked.

Volimtary 3 begins with a Largo, in which, most unusually for

Wesley, the dynamic contrasts are indicated by forte and piano markings, rather than Great and Choir, or Great and Diapasons. The sudden silences and unexpected harmonies are all there, but, as befits a movement which forms the prelude to a particularly severe fugue, there is also vigorous harmonic movement with clashing discords, and a little energetic double counterpoint.

The fugue is based on two subjects (Ex.24), a procedure not often used by Wesley, and extends to well over one hundred bars. One of the subjects, a rising scale in cantus firmus style even notes, bears a

strong similarity to a subject in Bach's Eight Short preludes and Fugues for organ, although Wesley is unlikely to have known this, and it also bears a family resemblance to the subject from Russell's Voluntary 12 of 1804, which he certainly did know (Ex.25). This fugue is certainly the most successful movement in the first half of Opus 6, and one of

the finest in the whole of Wesley's organ works. The main part is man•

aged with the same skill as the fugue in OPo 6 No.l, but in the final

section (Ex.26) it far surpasses the earlier piece. The return to the

tonic is approached by a ten bar passage in which the first subject, in

the bass, is developed like a cantus firmus, played first forwards (bars

100-106, the first two notes being in the harmony rather than actually

spelt out), and then backwards (bars 106-111), A cadence in C minor is reached at bar 115, at which point there is a stretto between the first 64

subject in diminution, and the same subject iii its original note values

accompanied by the second subject. The final climax is achieved with an

entry in the bass of the first subject, lower than it has appeared before

in the. fugue, accompanied, by the second subject in a loose stretto. Hie

first subject in the bass rises chromatically to a held dominant, and

with two bars of Adagio ends a peroration of great power, which shows

Wesley's true stature as an organ composer for the first time.

The unusual structure of Op.6 No. 5 has already been mentioned.

The three movements- Largo,. Poco Allegro, and Theme with Variations -

follow on without, a break, so that the last movement, rather than pro•

viding a climax to the voluntary as the third movement of Op.6 Nb.l does,

comes as a resolution of the tension caused by the incompleteness of the

first two movements. The Largo is clearly related to the slow introduct•

ions of Haydn's London Symphonies. The "question and answer" opening

(bars 1-4) has many parallels in the London Symphonies, while the plan

is very similar to that used in the slow introduction to Haydn's Sym• phony No. 104, Both are in three sections, each starting with a close variant , of the same idea (Ex. 27). Each of the three sections in the

Wesley contrasts the Swell, sometimes with Diapason accompaniment, with passages for Full Organ which develop the dotted rhythm of the first bar, and in the third section (bars 26-31) there is a passage for Diapason or

Choir. The previous passage (bars 24-27), which consists of three sep• arated chords for Full Organ, Swell, and Diapason or CSioir respectively, illustrates well enough Wesley's particular interest in tone coloiu* in this Voluntary,

The second movement in some respects points ahead to the style of some of Wesley's fourth period voluntaries. It is written in a sim• ple ritornello form; the Full Qrgran takes the ritornelli, which are all in the tonic and vary in leng^th from two to eleven bars,, while the epi• sodes are played on the Swell and Choir organs. The first statement

(Ex.28) again points to.Wesley's later style in the way that an appar- 65

entiy homophonic opening gradually opens out into a more contrapuntal

texture. The chief material of the episodes is in fact hidden in the

bass of the first statement at bars 5-7, This melody and that in bars

l«fl show a considerable advance in the development of Wesley's mature

melodic style, never square and often jagged in outline. The final

ritornello is based only on the theme heard in the bass at bars 5-7,

first in octaves and then in two parts over a dominant pedal, which is

the first note directed to be played on the pedals in Wesley's organ

music. The dominant resolves onto a tonic, immediately superseded by

a bridge-passage on the Swell, which leads'into the Theme and Variations,

We are told that the theme is "a melody of the late Ml*. Stephen Paxton**

who died in 1789, The theme, marked Grave, is played twice, first on

Soft Organ and then Full, and is followed by two variations, marked

Andante Allegrettoo The first consists of a running melody in semi•

quavers for Flute (4 ft.) or Dulciana over a sustained accompaniment

for Stopped Diapason. The second variation, for Full Organ, is of a

type which Wesley used on other occasions to conclude sets of variations.

The theme is given, simplified rather than decorated, over a dense four

part texture in which the inner parts are mostly moving in quavers.

So ends a voluntary, one of the most original in Opus 6, the

merit of which should not be obscured by the fact that the affected

character of Mr. Paxton*s theme and the slightly over-dramatic style of

the first movement are not altogether in accordance with modern notions

of idiomatic organ music.

The sixth voluntary attempts to combine the severe contrapuntal

style of the third and fourth voluntaries with the prettier, more colour-

conscious style of the fifth, without in any way fusing the two styles,

and at the same time producing the grandest possible overall effect.

The first movement is marked Largo e Maestoso, and apart from two bars for the Choir in the middle is to be played Full Organ throughout. It opens with a magnificently dramatic gesture: a simple imitative point 66

is used to build up a scale which rises through two octaves aiid a third,

culminating in the seventh-bar, in a chord of C minor which begins a

broad progression of chromatic harmony. Although no key other than C

major is definitely established, the movement abounds in chromatic chords,

diatonic relief being provided by the periodic returns of the opening

figure. Rhythmically the movement is dominated by rushing scales in the

bass and the dotted rhythm which Wesley used so frequently in his slow

introductions.

The second movement combines a galant air and variations with

a baroque fugue in a rondo-like structure in which the fugue forms the

episodes. Wesley presents an unassimingly pretty melody in binary form

(Ex.29)a Each half is played twice, once on the Choir, once with the right hand on the Swell, The whole thirty-two bars seem devised to

strike the greatest possible contrast with the grandiose first movement.

However, the melody is all but interrupted by a vigorous fugue subject given out for the Full Organ (Ex,30), This subject falls naturally in- 3 4 to a ^ pattern working against the basic ^ time of the music as a whole.

Thereafter variations on all or part of the rondo-theme, mostly exploit• ing the organ>s quieter sonorities, alternate with fugfal sections which make exclusive use. of the Full Organ, These latter present considerable contrapuntal complexity: at one point part of the rondo-theme appears as a cantus firmus in the bass, and the fugue subject appears in various stretti. In the final section (from bar 112) the second part of the air is presented with added chromatic harmony and partially inverted, before this remarkable voluntary is brought to a surprise conclusion pianissimo. 67

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CHAPTER VII LATER THIRD PERIOD VOLUNTARIES AND DUETS The voluntaries which Wesley wrote in the decade after 1806 are more than ever dominated by the fugue. N^ver before had this form held so important a position in the English Voluntary. Four of the six vol• untaries which date from this period are of the Prelude and Fugue type, while in the other two a fugue still forms the most important movement.

The finest of the four Preludes and Fugues, perhaps the finest of

all Wesley's voluntaries, is the Full Voluntary in D minor. This was the

final part of Twelve Short Pieces with a Full Volxintary Added published

by dementi in 1817, and, according to the obituary, composed at demen•

ti's own request. Wesley worked at a bad time for minor composers.

There were no safe conventions within which a composer could produce

effective, if unexceptional, music, as was the case, for example, in the

first half of the eighteenth century. The early years of the nineteenth

century were more suited to the genius of Beethoven than the talent of

Wesley, and the majority of Wesley's works fall all too obviously below

the high aims of their composer: yet he did produce a handful of works,

among them his famous motet. In Exitu Israel, and this Full Voluntary,

which stand head and shoulders above the rest of his output. In their

own highly individual way they are genuinely great, and justify the study

of his work as a whole.

Both movements of the Full Voluntary contain many typical feat•

ures of Wesley's style, some of them only recently evolved, all of them

carried through with an unusual degree of success. He casts the Prelude

in the three part form, reinforced by a strong dynamic contrast, which he regularly used for this type of movement. In this case a quiet middle

section is framed by outer sections for Full Organ with the Trumpet. The

first few bars (Ex.31) again show Wesley's favourite dotted rhythm, and

also the abrasive harmony which is a special feature of his best work.

The parts move quite independently without concern for incidental dis- 74 sonance, such as the consecutive sevenths between the inner parts in bar 3 or the working out of the cadence at bars 3 and 4. "Oiis was the first of Wesley's organ pieces to have a thorough-going pedal part, an indicat• ion of the particularly grand effect at which he was aiming.

The middle section'of the Prelude illustrates a feature of Wes•

ley's style which was new. It has already been remarked that in most of

the Opus 6 voluntaries Wesley avoids purely melodic writing as far as

possible because his melodic style is too galant for the basically baroque

character of the voluntaries, as the second movements of No.l and No.6

indicate. However, by about 1814 Wesley had assimilated much more of

J.S.Bach's style, which hitherto had been most apparent in the fug^ues. He

now evolved a new melodic style which brought him much closer to achieving

a coherent personal manner of writing.

There are four main features in this new melodic style, all of

which are to be seen in the middle section of the Prelude (Ex.32).

1. A continuous flow is maintained, avoiding any suggestion of a regf-

ular division into two or four bar periods by making one phrase flow straight

into the next.

2. The phrase structure, deliberately blurred in the melody, is made

clear by the harmony. There is a marked tendency to use regular patterned

basses, scales are especially common, and very clearly prepared cadences.

For instance in Ex. 32 there is a complete circle of fifths from A at bar

22 through A again to D at bar 26. There is then an ascending scale of D

minor from D to B flat leading to a very obvious perfect cadence at bar 28.

Another circle of fifths leads to another equally obvious cadential form•

ula and a return of the opening material at bar 33.

3. The melody presents an angular contour, with awkward unvocal in•

tervals, a feature of Bach's melodic style.

4. Chromaticism, a feature of galant melody, becomes less sweet,

though more common, through the influence of Bach's treatment of the de•

vice. Compare the beginning of the second movement of Op.6 No.l with its 75

single chromatic note (Ex.18) with the last.two bars of Ex.32 and the end of the Sarabande from Bach's Partita No.2 (Ex.33).

The final loud section of the Prelude recalls the opening bars-

and then, after some unusually lively work for the pedals and a succession

of left hand trills, settles on a dominant pedal over which the movement

comes to an end. In his Preludes and Fugrues Wesley almost invariably

ends the Prelude on a half close.

The Fugfue is in many ways typical of Wesley's treatment of this

form, and is in any case worth looking at in some detail. It is gener•

ally true that the effectiveness of a Wesley fugue depends on the indiv•

iduality of the subject, Wesley's attitude to the fugue is "romantic"

rather than "classical"'. He is not interested in producing a perfectly

balanced piece of polyphony on anonymous material. The more marked the

character of the subject, the better he responds to it. Again, Wesley

turns for inspiration to Bach, and many of his subjects have a distinct•

ly "Bachian" sound (e.g. Op,6 No.l Ex.18; Op,6 No,lO Ex.34)a The fugue

subject of the Full Voluntary certainly suggests the influence of Bach

more than that of anyone else, but really it expresses, perhaps more per•

fectly than anything else he wrote, the quixotic personality of Wesley

himself (Ex.35),

Typically there is no regular countersubject. Wesley wrote a

small number of double fugues, of which Op,6 No,3 is an example, but wrote no fugfues at all with subject and reg^ular countersubject. He pre•

fers to treat the subject almost as a basis for variations, finding new counterpoints for it at each entry. One of Wesley's more important pre• decessors, John Keeble, in the preface to his Select Pieces for the Organ of 1777 expresses the same idea:

"The subject proper for a Fugue may be considered as a kind of Canto Fermo, on which a great variety of Descant (i,e. Counterpoint) is discovered,"

Ex, 36 shows some of the counterpoints applied to the subject in the Full Voluntary. It is noticeable that for the first few entries (up 76

to the one at bar 17) Wesley keeps the accompanying counterpoint rather

plain, so as not to distract the listener from the subject itself. Only

later does he allow more florid counterpoints. His liking for bass lines

founded on the scale has already been noted in connection with his melodic

style. The counterpoint to the entry of the subject at bar 28 likewise

makes use of the descending scale in the bass, and at bar 39 the whole

subject is set against a decorated descending scale. At bar 50 the sub•

ject is found, improbably, to work in canon at half a beat's distance.

In one respect Wesley goes completely against Bach's practice.

He very rarely writes strictly in a set number of parts. He often uses

fill-in notes which have no contrapuntal significance, and although this

fugue is basically in three parts, it would be impossible to set it out

on three staves, not only because of the fill-in notes and the occasional

passages in four parts, but because the three basic parts are not contin•

uous. The middle part is quite likely to lead into the bass while a com•

pletely new middle part takes over above it. This irregular part writing

is an exclusive feature of keyboard counterpoint, and may well have its

origin in Wesley's habit of improvising f\igues.

In common with most post-baroque composers, Wesley is particul•

arly interested in making his fugues build up to one or more "events" which give a sense of climax. For this he generally uses the well-tried

devices of stretto, augmentation, diminution, and inversion. In the Full

Voluntary there is a minor event at bar 50 where the subject appears in close canon (Ex.36), but the grand climax of the fugue involves a remark• able use of augmentation. W&sley leads up to this final section with a passage which combines canon and double counterpoint (Ex.37, bars 74-81).

The subject then appears in the bass, so augmented that what originally took three bars now fills twelve (Ex.37 bars 82-93). The augmentation is not regular, some notes being twelve times their original value, while others are merely doubled. The subject is thus turned into a Cantus

Firmus over which it is heard in its original time values in D minor (bars 77

82-85), in F major (bars 85-87), and then, with the first.bar or so trans• posed, in D minor again (bars 90-92). Just as with the Canti Firmi in six• teenth century polyphony,, with which Wesley, was familiar, the augmentation is so great that the listener who has not. seen the music is very unlikely to notice it, although once detected it can be picked out; yet it fulfills the structural purpose of creating a single sentence large enough to bring the fugfue, which runs to more than 100 bars, to a final climax.

The autograph of this voluntary no longer exists. In fact auto• graphs of Wesley's published works are very rare. However, the autograph of the Twelve Short Pieces, with which the Full Voluntary was published, is still to be found at the Royal College of Music, and with it there is a sketch of the fugue starting with the augmentation at bar 82. It in• cludes a continuation from bar 95 which was later rejected and a pair of consecutive fifths in bar 95 which was avoided in the final version (Ex.38)a

The augmentation of the subject reaches it conclusion in bar 94, from which a sequence leads rapidly to a long dominant pedals The mag• nificent effect of the syncopated detached chords in bars 103-105 may be derived from a similar passage near the end of Bach's "Great" C major

Prelude and Fugfue, The voluntary ends on a five bar tonic pedal, over which Wesley makes use of the opening figure of the subject augmented, and some admirable treatment of discords,

Wesley was fond of finishing his fugues in the grand manner with a long tonic pedal, sometimes preceded by an equally long dominant pedal.

This was noticed as a characteristic of his work at the time. In his obituary in The Musical World the writer remarks that "the art which Wes• ley indicated in the prolongation of his final cadences was very great", and refers especially to the organ works. This is a feature of style not often found in earlier English orgran music, although it is more evi• dent in choral works, for instance the gloria to Boyce's unfinished

Service in A and Battishill's anthem 0 Lord look down. However the device is often to be found in the voluntaries of Russell as well as in the compositions of those composers after Wesley who were influenced by 78

J.S.Bach. There is probably a second, less obvious, influence at work

here, that of.the galant/classical style with its greater concern for

varying the harmonic pace. Many eighteenth century English organ fugues

end with a pause and a final cadence marked Adagio, but in a prolonged

cadence it is the harmonic speed which slows down, while rhythmically

the music remains at the same speed. The same idea of a built-in rall-

entando can be found in the repeated cadences and tonic chords at the end

of almost any classical symphonic movement.

The other five voluntaries written between 1806 and 1817, Op.6

Nos, 7 to 11, are similar to the Full Voluntary, although only one. Op.6

No.lO, approaches it in quality, and therefore they can be treated much more briefly,

Op*6 Nb.7 is in three movements but the fugue which forms the last movement is no less dominating than in the two movement voluntaries.

This is one of the two voluntaries in Op.6 which begin with a movement for Diapasons only. As in the case of the first voluntary it is written

in four parts rather than the conventional three. It is particularly rich in chromatic harmony and this is because, according to his obituary

in The Musical World, Wesley wrote this voluntary "under circumstances of the severest domestic dlstress"o Indeed, as he wrote this voluntary,

Wesley was plagued by illness and financial worry to the point where he looked forward to death with more than equanimity. The middle movement is more lively: it begins in C minor on a "mixture" (Diapason, Princip• al and Fifteenth or something of that sort), but ends on a more subdued note on Diapasons only, in the key of G minor.

The eighth voluntary is one of the weakest. The lirumpet fanfares, which are the principal feature of the prelude, may have had more novelty when they were written, but now they seem extremely trite. The fugue is of the alia breve type, based on a brief and rather uninteresting subject.

However, it does offer the first example of another type of event which

Wesley sometimes used in his later fugues, the passage in octaves. In 79

this case it appears at the end of the fugue and consists of the subject

with an extension. (Ex. 39). Apart-from his later organ works, Wesley uses

the same device in his motets, notably In Exitu Israel and Exultate Deo,

and in the long fugue which is the chief movement, of his Piano Sonata in

D minor. Although yet again he was anticipated by Bach in his Fugue in E minor from Book I of Das Wohltemperirte Klavier, this practice stems from

Wesley's desire to make the fugue as dramatic a form as possible. Passages

in octaves begin to appear more frequently in non-fugal forms at about the

same time, and indeed there is such a passage in the first movement of

OPP 6 No. 8

Op6 6 No,9 is another Prelude and Fugfue, The Prelude is a partic• ularly fully developed movement in G minor stretching to sixty-four bars.

Wesley reverses his more usual three part plan, framing a loud section with quiet outer sections for Diapasons aiid Swell. There is a passage in the middle section reminiscent of the twenty-third of Bach's Goldberg

Variations, which Wesley had arrangred for two keyboards (Ex.40), The

Prelude is followed by a bright fugue in G major, but there is a signif• icant section built round G minor, and this leads to entries of the subject in D minor, B flat major and F major, keys which, for Wesley, are unus• ually remote from the tonic.

The first movement of 0P«6 No.lO presents another example of the florid melodic style which Wesley had recently adopted. The second move• ment (Ex. 41) shows very clearly the influence of Bach's inventions. The end of this movement shows some assured handling of chromatic harmony

(Ex,42), There follows a simple Diapason movement in the relative minor, which is in binary form with an additional link passage ending on a half close in F major. This movement is most notable for some very large left hand stretches and the use of triplet and duplet crotchets (Ex,43), The fugue, which forms the last movement and is the corner-stone of the volun• tary, is another example of Wesley's responding to an interesting subject

(Ex.34), the chromatic possibilities of which are fully realised. The 80

architectural grasp discernible in this fugue is especially impressive.

The essential features are three entries of the subject in the tonic over

pedal-points. The first occurs immediately after the three-part expos•

ition and is over a tonic pedal. About two thirds of the way through the

fugue the subject (still in the tonic) enters over a dominant pedal and

the final entry, over another tonic pedal completes the design. Wesley

builds up to the dominant pedal with a somewhat discursive section which

includes another passage in octaves. The subject enters on the first and

third beats as well as the regular second, thus shifting the accents.

Wesley used this device on other occasions, and it is also to be found in

Beethoven's fugues, notably in the last movement of the Hammerklavier

Sonata.

Wesley uses the prolonged cadence technique at the end of this voluntary, but the effect is quite different from that at the end of the

Full Voluntary. Here Wesley achieves a delightful run-out as the fugue gracefully unwinds over the final tonic pedal (Ex.44). It is certainly strange that this voluntary is not to be found in a modern edition.

The eleventh voluntary is a Prelude and Fugue constructed on similar lines to the others. This time two loud sections with the usual dotted rhythms frame a quieter more lyrical middle section. The third section begins with another passage in octaves. Francis Routh, in his book Early English Organ Music, suggests that the subject of the long fugfue which follows is derived from the begrinning of the first movement

(Ex.45). Routh sees many such connections, most of them less obvious than this, between movements within Wesley's voluntaries. However they are not sufficiently clear to be entirely convincing, or, even if they do exist, to have any particular point to them.

There are also two duets for organ which date from the same per• iod as these voluntaries. The smaller of the two was written as an intro• duction to a four hands arrangement of the "St. Anne" Fugue. This fugue seems to have had the greatest effect of all Bach*s works on English 81

organists of the time. Wesley performed it in his duet arrangement in

various parts of the country. In a letter to his mother written in Jan•

uary 1810, he mentions having performed it with liis brother at St. Paul's

Cathedral: apparently even Charles was impressed, although as a rule, to

Samuel's despair, he showed very little enthusiasm for Bach. The influ•

ence of this work, both thematic and structural, is often to be seen in

English organ music of the period, notably in the work of Russell and

Adams.

There are four manuscript copies of Wesley's arrangement of the

"St, Anne" Fugue with his introduction. One of them belonged to Vincent

Novello and on it he wrote a note describing the circumstances of its

composition:

"This introductory movement was written on purpose for me, on the occasion of our performing this duet together for the benefit of Mr. Russell's Widow, when the oratorio of "job" was performed at the Foundling Hospital Chapel in the year 1814. Mr. S. Wesley of course played the treble, and I played the bass part of the Duetto,"

William Russell, who had been organist at the Foundling Hospital,

died in 1813 at the age of thirty-six, leaving a wife and two children.

Job was his own composition,

Wesley's prelude has the character of a lament for Russell and is

in sombre mood throughout, being mostly in C minor although the fugue is

in E flat major, the prelude is cast in a ternary form similar to that which Wesley used for the preludes to his own fugues. In this case a

Full Organ mid-section with massive syncopated chords and discords, and runs in quavers and semiquavers, is framed by two quiet sections as in the first movement of Op,6 No.9, In the first section he seems to have been influenced by the sonority of Bach's organ trios, employing a web of three different tone colours. Diapasons, Oboe, four foot Flute, and three diff• erent motives which fit together, although he never uses more than two at the same time. The first of these motives is a second version of the sol• emn phrase with which the introduction begins (£x,46). At the end the sub• ject of the "St, Anne" Fugue is heard in B flat on the Swell and Choir over 82 a running accompaniment, and the prelude ends on a chord of B flat.

•The largest of Wesley's extant organ duets was also written to be played with Vincent Novello. It is the Duet in C. finished on May 24th

1812 and intended to be played at the Hanover Square Rooms. The organ there had been built by Wesley's friend, Thomas Elliott, in 1804 at a cost of £700, Like most organs in halls and concert rooms, it was fairly small, much smaller than the organ at the Foundling Hospital for which the

1814 Duet was written. It will be seen that although it had a very com• plete Great organ and even a few pedal pipes, there was no Oioir and the short-compass Swell was of little use for anything but solos.

Great (GG - f^)

Open Diapason I 8

Open Diapason II 8

Stopped Diapason 8

Principal 4

Twelfth 2f

Fifteenth 2

Sesquialtera IV ranks

Trumpet 8

Swell (f - f^)

Open Diapason 8

Stopped Diapason 8

Hautboy 8

Pedals

Large pipes CCC to F sharp 19 pipes

(Specification from Notes on English Organs of the period 1800-1810 ... taken chiefly from the manuscript of Henry Leffler, published 1911).

Wesley's obituary in The Musical World indicates that there were two Grand Duets for the organ and that the other was published by Lonsdale.

It is strange that the C major Duet, which never existed except in manu• script, has survived, while the other duet, which was published, seems to 83

have disappeared without trace. According to the obituary,, the published

Duet was "as a whole, the greatest composition for the organ which has

appeared since the days of-Sebastian Bach," but "the composer preferred

(the C major Duet) to the other, and considered it his best composition

for the organ,"

The Duet in C is a fairly large-scale sonata in three movements.

It is completely unclassical, and this is particularly apparent in the

first movement. Conventionally it should be in sonata form, which depends

upon balance, upon variety and integration of texture and rhythm, and upon

the resolution of tonal tension. In the first movement of the C major

Duet there is none of this. Instead there is a succession of episodes which have a cumulative rather than a formal effect. Each episode has

a dominant, often continuous, rate of movement, crotchet, quaver, triplet quaver, or semiquaver, and this negation of rhythmic integration, together with the use of terraced dynamics, gives the movement what shape it has.

So far as tonality is concerned, there is just sufficient movement towards the dominant for Wesley to be able to stage the effect of a recapitulation, no more.

The second movement, in F major, is more classical in design, be• ing in normal sonata form with the tonic-dominant-tonic pattern clearly marked. As in parts of the later Introduction to the "St, Anne" Fugue,

Wesley creates a texture reminiscent of the trio-sonata. The Prime part is played entirely on the Swell, the Secondo on the Great Diapasons, and for much of the movement the Primo and Secondo right hand play two contra• puntal parts over an accompaniment provided by the Secondo left hand.

Reference to the three-stop Swell at the Hanover Square Rooms make's Wes• ley's ubiquitous direction "Swell" unusually easy to interpret. In the occasional passage where the Primo part acts as an "echo" commentator on the Secondo, the Diapasons must have been used, while for the rest the

Hautboy must have been added to form a solo combination. In this movement he uses a very effective duet sonority, which is also to be found in the 84

Introduction to the "St. Anne" Fugue, in which triadic figuration in two

tone colours intertwines using the same three or four notes (Ex.47).

There is more confident use, in both the first and second movements, of

long melodies than is to be found in most of Wesley's contemporary vol-

iintaries. For instance in the second movement there is another long^

breathed "spinning^out" type of melody in the second group (Ex.48). The

false relation in the fourth bar of Ex. 48 is typical of the composer,

and milder than many of the examples in his work.

The final movement is a gigantic double fugue, nearly three hun•

dred bars long, and all but ten bars directed to be played Full Organ.

The second subject is a lightly disguised version of B-A-C-H, the only

instance in Wesley's music (Ex. 49). After some ninety bars there is an extensive treatment of the first subject in its inversion. Half way

through the movement there is a brief modulation to E flat which for pure

impudence is unsurpassed (Ex.50). It is no more than an effect of the moment, and within seven bars the tonic is reestablished. The fugue reaches its climax over a dominant pedal lasting no less than twenty- eight bars. At this point the writer of our oft-quoted obituary "could scarcely refrain from shouting and screaming with delight", which is-not' the reaction most often encountered in modern performances of the work.

Over the pedal, the first subject in augmentation is heard accompanied by figures from both subjects at their original speed.

The effect of this movement is cumulative indeed: the final trumpeting repeated notes, the homophony, and the enormous last chord only make more explicit what Wesley has been trying to do all along.

Anyone who approaches this fugue in terms of the eighteenth century, will surely misunderstand it: rather it serves as a reminder that Wesley has at least as much connection with the new romantic school of Schubert and Mendelssohn as the old baroque of Handel and Boyce. 85 EX.31

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•"•U'Mi*n.jiia4iJi]|^^ 95 CHAPTER VIII THE SHORT PIECES

Two opposite tendencies can be discerned in the music of the early

nineteenth century. One is the expansion of the forms of the late eight•

eenth century, shown, for instance, in the piano sonatas of Beethoven,

Schubert and dementi. On the other hand such works as Chopin's Preludes

and Beethoven's Bagatelles illustrate the opposite tendency towards con•

centration, the desire to express fully perhaps a single idea within the

shortest possible span. It was a time when a piece of only a few dozen

bars could vie in importance with music on the grandest scale.

Both tendencies are represented in Wesley's organ music. In

Opus 6, the chief monument to his third period of organ composition, the

Voluntary was invested with a grandeur it had never known before. In his

\

fovirth period Wesley's achievements as an organ composer were more diverse,

and the period may be said to start with the appearance of his first short

pieces for the organ, in which concentration rather than expansion is the

underlying principle. They were published by Clementi under the title

Twelve Short Pieces for the organ with a Full Voluntary added, composed

and inscribed to organists in general. The autograph is dated July 10th

1816, and Clementi entered his edition at Stationers' Hall on June 7th

1817.

Wesley's development of the short piece holds a position of cen•

tral importance in his entire organ output. This is partly because it

represents the appearance of a genre new to Wesley, which was to engrage

him for the rest of his life; but this is not the most important aspect

since none of his later short pieces achieved the brilliance of his first

set. It is more important for the influence it exerted on the Voluntary,

the central form in Wesley's organ works. That influence is to be seen in

the much smaller dimensions of some of his later voluntaries, notably the

"miniature" voluntaries of Opus 36, and in many individual movements of those voluntaries still written on a grand scale. Thus the essential 96 difference between the third and fourth periods is the appearance of the short piece, and the changes in the later voluntary brought about by its influence.

In fact the Twelve Short Pieces are themselves voluntaries, mem• bers of a genre to which Wesley had made no previous contribution. Since the last quarter of the eighteenth century, a number of composers had used the ,term "pieces" rather than "voluntaries" to describe their organ music.

The most distinguished of these composers were John Keeble who published four sets of Select Pieces between 1777 and 1780, and Thomas Sanders

Dupuis who published sets of pieces in 1785 and 1792. In actual fact each of Keeble's "pieces" is a voluntary in several movements, while Dupuis» pieces are arranged in groups according to key, and thus form voluntar• ies. An example closer in time to Wesley's Short Pieces, where the inter- changeability of the two terms is admitted, is George Guest's Sixteen

Pieces or Voluntaries Op.3 of 1808, while another example, slightly bi• zarre, was published by Jonas Blewitt in about 1798 and consisted of twelve pieces "which may be used either separately or in continuation so as to form One Compleat (sic) Voluntary". Wesley's Short Pieces actually number' thirteen, but the last piece but one is deprived of its number so that there appears to be only twelve pieces. This device is to be found in the autograph as well as in the first edition, so we must assume that it was Wesley himself who thought that twelve Short Pieces sounded better than thirteen. They are arranged to form four voluntaries:

Short Piece 1

2 Voluntary in G

3

Short Piece 4

^' Voluntary in A minor 6 '

Short Piece 8

9 Voluntary in F

10 97

Short Piece Ha

lib Voluntary in D

12

The careful dynamic grading in each group of pieces, beginning with the quietest and ending with the loudest, confirms the impression given by the grouping according to key that Wesley thought of these pieces in groups or voluntaries, and not singly.

The Twelve Short Pieces exploit colour, especially solo colour, to a greater extent than any other of Wesley's organ works. The English voluntary of the mid«-eighteenth century made extensive use of solo stops, and special styles of writing developed round such stops as the Cornet, the Trumpet and the Horn, but such writing was now out of fashion in the full scale voluntary, and the comparatively minor role played by solo stops in Opus 6 has already been noted. One of the advantages for Wesley of the miniature (none of the Twelve Short Pieces is longer than 44 bars) 1 was that it enabled him to use for short stretches solo colours which were no longer considered proper when used on the extended scale demanded by the Solo Voluntary, Even in these Short Pieces he never uses one solo colour from beginning to end but prefers to use two or three different colours in a single piece. For instance in the eighth piece, he uses an unspecified solo stop on the Swell, the Cremona or Vox Humana* and the four foot Flute, Five of the thirteen pieces make use of solo stops. In the remainder Wesley continues to exercise great care over the grading of the chorus, using many combinations between "Diapasons" and "Full Organ with the Trumpet",

Formally, the voluntaries created by the Short Pieces are rad•

ically different from Wesley's earlier voluntaries, which consisted of mov^ents varying greatly in lengrth, some of which could stand as inde• pendent pieces while others, lacking a final.cadence, were merely pre•

ludes to the larger movements that followed them. Each movement in a

"Short Piece" voluntary is independent, of about the same lengrth as its 98

fellows, and of equal importance. Three of the four voluntaries have three movements, the other has four. In each case the movements get pro• gressively louder, the last movement being for Full Organ with or without the n-umpet. Some of the pieces intended for the chorus stops are in rec• ognised small forms such as binary (No.6) and ternary with repeats (Nose9 and lib). The last piece is a fugue (it was the convention to end a set of voluntaries or pieces with at least one fugue), and the third is a fugue with a short introduction, while the seventh is in fugal styles Many have little or none of the thematic repetition necessary to give form to music written on a larger scale. The eighth piece, for example, is in four sections using contrasted solo stops, three of which begrin with slight variations on the same four bar phrase, but it gains it^ cohesion and sense of direction from another source. It has already been observed that Wes• ley had a liking for regular bass lines which draw heavily on sequence. The bass line of this piece consists, with only the slightest simplifi• cation, of an ascending scale framed by two descending scales, and this is the piece's most essential formal pattern. The bass line of the fifth piece is an almost uninterrupted descending circle of fifths (Ex.51) which, combined with the division of the piece into sections for Cornet and Swell, provides a taut musical organisation with only minimal use of themes or motives.

Both the Short Pieces and the Full Voluntarv in D minor^ which

was published with them, are given metronome markings rather than speed /

indications, but in the autograph some of the pieces are given English

speed indications in addition. Wesley never used metronome markings in

his organ music again, but the English speed directions appear frequent•

ly in his fourth period.

The first volvmtary (that is pieces 1,2 and 3 in G major) be•

gins with a Diapason movement, a nod to convention like the first move•

ment of OP,6 No.l, since Wesley rarely wrote a whole movement for

Diapasons, However, like the earlier movonent, it owes little to the 99

style of the traditional Diapason movement. It is really one long flex•

ible melody over two parts whose function is essentially one of accompan-

ment, although they contribute the occasional aside when the top part

reaches a long note. The second movement, described in the autograph as

''lively but not quick", is in three sections, a solo for the Swell accompan•

ied by Diapasons between two sections for Diapasons and Principal, each

beginning with a variant of the same idea. The voluntary concludes with

a "lively" introduction and fugue played on Full Organ.

The Voluntary in A minor comprises the next four pieces. The 9 first, in time, begins with brief solos for Hautboy and Flute. The re- o mainder, for Diapasons, balances an ascending with a decending circle of fifths. It is the bass part which takes the lead for much of the time, beginning with a strange passage in which the second and fourth bars are almost exact inversions of the first and third bars (Ex.52). Apart from some pieces written before he was ten the fifth piece contains all the notes that Wesley is known to have written for that once popular stop, the Cornet. It is interesting to note its use in the minor mode in view of John Marsh's warning against using the Cornet in major keys (see page

22), and the prevalence of semiquaver figuration traditionally assoc• iated with the Cornet stop. The third movement, for Diapasons, Princ• ipal and Fifteenth, features two parts over a bass moving steadily in quavers, while the last movement is a brilliant and concise treatment of a simple triadic figure and its inversion (Ex.53).

The first two movements of the Voluntary in F, generally known as

"Air and Gavotte", are by far the most popular of Wesley's organ works.

This is understandable since the so-called Air (No.8) is a particularly attractive example of Wesley's long^breathed sinuous brand of lyrical melody, and the so-called Gavotte (certainly it is one although Wesley does not so name it) is his contribution to the remarkably large number of memorable gavottes written by eighteenth century English composers.

The third movement is a lively piece which keeps up an almost continuous stream of semiquavers and creates some unusual effects of texture by its 100

use of octaves (Ex.54).

The last three pieces form a Voluntary in D, As in the two pre•

vious voluntaries, the first movement exploits solo effects, in this case

the Flute, Swell, and Diapasons with Flute (a most unusual solo combinat•

ion )a It may be observed at this point that Wesley keeps to the quieter

solo stops in the TVrelve Short Pieces with only one exception. That is

in the four movement A minor voluntary where he has room to include a

Cornet piece after one featuring quieter solo stops. The Trumpet, al• though used several times in the chorus, is never given a solo. The sec• ond movement, one of the more extended pieces, is a two-part invention for Diapasons, Flute, Principal, Twelfth and Fifteenth with occasional passages in three parts. The principal idea is one of the rare examples of double counterpoint in Wesley's music (Ex. 55), The last piece is a compact alia breve fugue in which the subject is combined with its own inversion (EXo56)o

The complete book of the Twelve Short Pieces and the Full Vol• untary in D minor, representing as it does some of Wesley's best music in both small and large scale forms, is the greatest single monument to

Wesley's achievement as an organ composer. The two remaining extant groups of short pieces for the org^an hold a much less prominent place in

Wesley's output. One, entitled Scraps for the Organ is of uncertain date and may even be earlier than the Twelve Short Pieces; the other, a set of six Introductory Movements was written seven years before Wesley's death.

The gracelessly named Scraps for the Organ have three sources, which disagree over many details. Only one is an autograph, part of

Ms,4021 in the library of the Royal College of Music, It bears no date, and no title. The second source, also at the Royal College of Music, is part of Ms,1151. It is a copy, made by a Bath organist named Windsor, and taken, as it states "from the author's manuscript in the possession of

Miss Ogle", However, Miss Ogle's manuscript was not that in Ms,4021 but. 101

apparently, another version made by Wesley. The four pieces which make up the set are not arranged in the same order. The first piece has a speed direction which is missing in Ms,4021, and the speed directions over two others disagree with those in Ms,4021. Finally there are many discrepan• cies in the actual text. Ms,1151 is the only sovirce for the set's title. The third source is less important: the "Scraps" were not published in Wesley's life-time, but his friend and champion, Vincent Novello, included them in two volumes of his Short Organ Melodies, published in 1848. A note at the head of one of the pieces says that it comes "from an unpublished Ms, by Samuel Wesley, formerly in the possession of Miss Ogle of Bath", As expected, wherever the two manuscript sources disagree, Novello's ver• sion follows Ms.1151, but there are other places where it agrees with neither source. Presumably this is the result of alterations made by Nov• ello himself. Novello almost certainly obtained the "Scraps" from Windsor, since the autograph of an Air for the Organ in C minor contains the follow• ing note written by Vincent Novello,

"Having had this tasteful specimen of Wesley's Impromptu style engraved for insertion in my collection of "Melod• ies for the Organ", I have now the pleasure of presenting the original Manuscript to my esteemed friend and brother Musician, Mr. Windsor of Bath, as a little keepsake from myself, and in memorial of my late and illustrious and beloved friend, Samuel Wesley, one of the greatest music• al Geniuses that England ever produced. July 7th 1848,"

All four "Scraps" are in binary form. In style they seem to fall

between the Twelve Short Pieces and the Six Introductory Movements of 1830,

There are no indications of registration in the two manuscript sources (the

few vague directions in Novello's edition are unlikely to go back further

than Novello himself), but there are no opportunities for the use of solo

stops in the three pieces which are obviously meant to be quiet. In this

respect they differ from the Twelve Short Pieces, in which most of the

quieter pieces contain solos, and suggest the duller registration of the

later pieces. On the other hand the "Scraps" are contrapuntally much more

interesting than the Introductory Movements and in this respect are closer to the Twelve Short Pieces. The most extended of the "Scraps" is the one 102 in E flat which is the last of the set in both manuscript sources. It is a moto perpetuo, seventy bars long, in which the use of sequences and the spinning out of a long unbroken melody in even notes show Bach's influence with special clarity.

It is possible that Wesley composed these Scraps for the Organ as a single work, rather than as independent pieces. Both the order adopted in Ms.4021 and that in Ms.1151 appear logical if unconventional:

Ms.4021 Ms.1151

No. 1 D minor G

2 B flat D minor

3 G B flat

4 E flat E flat

The first order is built on a descending pattern of thirds, which happens to correspond exactly with the key scheme of Schubert•s first four Moments

Musicaux; the second uses a mixture of dominiant and mediant relationships.

It is noticeable that wherever two consecutive pieces are a third apart, the first note in the cop part of the second piece is common to the tonic chords of both pieces, and in every case except one (Nos. 2 and 3 in Ms.4021) that same note completes the top part in the first piece. Novello divides the four pieces between two different volumes of his Short Organ Melodies, but this is of no help since Novello would not have wanted to group to• gether foiar pieces by the same composer in a work designed to give the impression of variety.

The Six Introductory Movements were originally named Desk Volun• taries and were arranged in a different order from.that which they assumed on their publication. Three of them remain in autograph as Desk Voluntar• ies Nos. 3, 4 and 5, published as Introductory Movements Nos. 3, 6 and 1.

Desk Voluntary No. 3 is signed and dated August 27th 1830. Like the

Twelve Short Pieces, but unlike any other of Wesley's organ works, they were published by Clementi. The date of publication, 1831, is established by the plate number. They follow the plan of the earlier work in that the short pieces are followed by a single full-scale voluntary. However, they 103

are undeniably duller than the earlier pieces and share a common lack of distinction with the short organ pieces by German composers, such as Rinck

and Sechter, which were becoming known in Ehgland at about this time. The full title g^ven to the set is not insignificant, since it contains a clue to the character of the pieces:

Six Introductory Movements / for the / ORGAN / intended for the use of Organists as soft / VOLUNTARIES, / to be performed at the commencement of services / of the / Established Church, / to which is added / a Loud Voliintary with Introduction and Fugue

The Loud Voluntary is headed "for the conclusion of the Service", Thus these pieces were written to fulfil a definite function in a church service, and that a not very glorious one. By 1830 the general attitude to the services of the church was a good deal more solemn than it had been in the previous century. The music played by the organist before or during the service was expected merely to provide proper devotional background.

He was not supposed to "push himself forward" in any way, and while he played music like Wesley's Introductory Movements there was no danger of his doing so. The ear-tickling effects produced by solos on stops like the Cornet and the Cremona in the Twelve Short Pieces are banned. All six pieces begin on Diapasons, with occasional relief from the Swell, and the very occasional addition of the Principal. Coupled to this dull reg^ istration is a faceless anonymity which amounts to themelessness. A com• parison of the third piece (Exo57) with any of the Twelve Short Pieces shows the difference between music written for., its own sake, without any prescribed function, and music prevented by the purpose for which it was composed from being more than competently written background music. In only one respect are the Introductory Movements more adventurous than the

Twelve Short Pieces and that is in the use of the pedals. It will be seen that the third Introductory Movement (Ex.57) contains two quite long pass•

ages in which no great pedal technique is required but which are some way

beyond the odd pedal note here and there which is all that Wesley's earlier organ works demand. The Loud Voluntary which follows the Intro- 104

ductory Movements and will be more fully discussed in Chapter XII con• tains even more exacting passages for the pedals.

In addition to these three sets of pieces and the three very early

Cornet Pieces there remain seventeen short pieces by Wesley which are cer• tainly or almost certainly for organ. Six have Novello's Short Organ Mel• odies as their only soiurce, and this is an edition which includes many arrangements, while it is not always possible to be sure for what instru• ment a manuscript piece is intended. There are several attractive pieces among them, but they do not add any new features to the picture drawn by

Wesley's three chief collections. 105

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CHAPTER IX

THE VOLUNTARIES OF 1817 AND OP.6 N0.12

The last voluntary of Op.6 differs in several respects from its

predecessors. In its printed form it strikes one immediately by its new

cover design, as typically nineteenth centiu*y as the two earlier designs

remained faithful to the eighteenth century style. The speed directions

are printed in English, and although the autograph of the Twelve Short

Pieces includes some English speed directions, Wesley's published organ

music had always used Italian directions or, in the case of the Twelve

Short Pieces and the Full Voluntary in D minor, metronome marks. Eng•

lish speed directions are common in the organ music which Wesley published

in the 1820s and 1830s. The style of the music itself is subtly changed.

The grand rhetorical manner of the earlier voluntaries has been replaced

by a more intimate, domestic character. This change of style leads to a

changre in structure. The voluntary ends on a note of deliberate under•

statement with a finale which is in fact a Short Piece in ternary form

for Dulceana (sic) or Cremona. No other voluntary in Op.6 ends so mod•

estly. Indeed the only other voluntary in OP-S to have a quiet ending

is No. 6, and this is only a surprise ending to a particularly grandiose

last movement.

However, the very features which divide the twelfth voluntary

from the rest of Op.6, the English speed directions, the intimate style,

the brief, quiet last movement, connect it with two unpublished voluntar•

ies written in 1817. The first, in D major, was written in October, the

second, in B flat, was completed in November. There is also another link between the 1817 voluntaries and Op.6 No. 12. The autograph of the Volun• tary in B flat bears the title, "Voluntary 12th", This is impossible to explain unless the voluntary was originally intended to be the final in•

stalment of Op,6, If this is the case, it must have been replaced before publication by the present Op.6 No.l2, which is presumably a later work.

It seems that the two voluntaries of 1817 and Op,6 No. 12 form the first 109

group of Fourth Period voluntaries. Op,6 No,12 was probably written late in 1817 or early in 1818, about four years after Op,6 No,10, the last vol• untary in the set which can be given a definite date.

These three voluntaries share the same basic structure. A slow

movement leads through a half close into a faster second movement, largely

or entirely for Full Organ, which is the principal movement of the volun•

tary. The last movement is shorter and quieter, in the style of a Short

Piece,

The first movement of the Voluntary in D, marked Very Slow, con•

sists largely of flowing three part coxmterpoint, but there is one passage

with a Swell solo (Ex,58) in which the hint of pathos perhaps reflects

the fact that 1817 had not been a happy year for Wesley who had survived

an attempted suicide in May, Indeed the whole movement has an unusually

grave, even elegiac character.

The second movement is a Full Organ fug^ue of a more lively dis•

position. After a three part exposition there comes a series of entries

of the subject in an upward circle of fifths from D to F sharp, which is

balanced by a more rapid sequential circle of fifths back to D again.

The inverted subject is then presented in a full exposition before being

combined with its original form. This fugue has one of the more success• ful examples of the discursive ending, with very free treatonent of the part-writing and the last complete entry in the improbable key of E minor

(Ex,59), This is probably the sort of peroration which concluded Wesley's improvised fugues and so impressed his hearers. Between the two As of a double dominant pedal, Wesley manages to combine the two halves of his subject (bars 81-83). There is much effective use of diminished seventh chords, while over the final tonic pedal there is an augmentation of part of the subject reminiscent of the same point in the Full Voluntary in D minor.

Wesley completed the Fugue on October 8th, Ten days later, per• haps as an afterthought, he added a third movement. It is a binary move- 110

ment in pastoral, vein for two parts played on the Full Swell over a Dia•

pason bass. At some time later in the month, Wesley appears to have had

a further afterthought, and added a Coda for Full Organ, which was presum•

ably intended to refer back to the Full second movement. This coda, which

is twenty bars long, has the character of.a short improvisation based on

the third movement. In experimenting with the use of a quiet miniature

to conclude a voluntary, Wesley was adopting a procedure which William

Russell had used in his Voluntary in E minor, published as far back as

1804. However, it seems that Wesley was not yet prepared to give up the

grand ending, and therefore produced this somewhat awkward compromise.

The first movement of the Voluntary in B flat is more extrovert

than its equivalent in the Voluntary in D, Apart from one more lyrical

passage with another solo on the Swell, the movement is for Full Organ with much use of passages in octaves and syncopations. The second move• ment is disappointing, and may be the reason for the voluntary's reject•

ion as Op,6 No,l2e It is an attempt to write a full scale movement in

a contrapuntal texture, without the aid of fugue. The thematic mater•

ial lacks distinction, and Wesley can only fill the movement out with

strings of commonplace sequences. However, the movement is notable as the first attempt at a problem which he was to solve more successfully

in later voluntaries, particularly those dedicated to John Harding.

In the third movement Wesley succeeds in combining the quiet last movement and the loud ending less crudely than he had done in the previous voluntary. The bulk of the movement, marked Moderately Slow, is for "Soft Organ" and in the gently lyrical style of some of the Short

Pieces; but after eighteen bars there is a passage, entirely in octaves, for the Full Organ, The Soft Organ returns for a further seven bars be• fore giving way once more to the Full Organ, again mostly in octaves, which concludes the voluntary in another five bars. It will be seen that the last movement contains much the same ingredients as the first but reverses the proportions. In this case the third movement was completed Ill

only one day after the first two movements (November 5th and 6th).

The two voluntaries just described, and also the set of variat•

ions on "God Save the King" written immediately afterwards, all have cryp•

tic inscriptions on the autographs, consisting of initials and abbreviat•

ions. It seems impossible to discover the meaning of most of them, but

from those of which the meanings can be guessed, it appears that they are

connected with the depression that afflicted Wesley in 1817, For instance,

at the end of the second movement of the Voluntary in D, apart from Wes•

ley's signature and the date, there are three further inscriptions. The

first is S D G which stands for Soli Dei Gloria (To the Glory of God Alone),

something Wesley often wrote at the foot of a composition. The second, of

inscrutable meaning, is E,M,£,£iii while the third inscription is a Greek

word eXSeo^i which is probably meant to be eX^o^t meaning "I strive"

(presumably without success). At the end of the Voluntary in B flat is

written the word perd. which may be an abbreviation of perditus meaning

"lost" or "destroyed".

The twelfth voluntary of 0P«6 is the last of a set which had been

gradually appearing in print for more than fifteen years. It also seems

to represent the fruit of Wesley's experiments in the two unpublished voluntaries of 1817. The first movement is the least remarkable, a quiet, serene piece of three part coimterpoint, alternating Diapasons with Swell, which ends in the dominant. The second movement of the Voluntary in B flat has already been described as an attempt, by no means entirely succ• essful, to write the principal fast movement of a'voluntary in a contra• puntal idiom, without its actually being a fugue; in the second movement of Op,6 No.12 Wesley makes a second attempt at the problem, and produces a much improved solution. He fits a series of fugal episodes, all based on the same subject, into the framework of a homophonic ritornello, thus adopting a procedure which Mendelssohn was to use in his Orgran Sonatas, for instance in the last movement of No.4. The important elements in the ritornello are its homophonic character, which contrasts with the fugal 112 episodes, and its rhythm. No fewer than eight of the twelve notes in the subject are Cs, and since the dominant naturally requires an answer from the tonic, the subject is answered in the subdominant rather than the us• ual dominant. Another point concerning the subject is that, although on its first appearance it clearly implies the key of F modulating to C, it can be harmonised in other keys without the pitch of the melody being al• tered, and Wesley does this later in the movement. The whole movement, together with the third movement is reproduced in Ex, 60. The basic plan of the movement is as follows:

bars 1-8 Ritornello F major

8-23 Fugue Three entries of the

fugue subject in F,

B flat and F.

24 - 34 Ritornello F to C

34 - 41 Fugue C minor subject in soprano.

G minor answer in bass.

42-54 Ritornello D minor Note the enharmonic to* A minor modulation in bars 50-51

54 - 74 Fugue A minor subject melodically in

D minor •

A minor to G minor Episode (bars 58-69)

G minor subject melodically in

E flat but extended to

end in G minor rather

than B flat.

75 - 90 Ritornello G minor to F

90 - 98 Fugrue F subject over dominant

pedal with homophonic

continuation based on the

rhythm of the subject,

ending with a pause on a 113

dominant seventh chord,

bars 98 - 106 Coda A broad homophonic con•

clusion, with the Trumpet

added to the Full Organ.

The only change of registration is the addition of the Trumpet stop for the last few bars. This is something which Wesley had never asked for before, but it appears several times in his later voluntaries.

There is no attempt to break the movement into sections by changes of man• ual, although this device is common in fast movements in the first part of Op.6, and is to become common again as Wesley makes further use of ritornello form.

It will be seen that there are several alterations to the text in the copy reproduced in Ex. 60 (e.g. bars 2,5,6,8). This copy is one of a complete set of Op»6 in the library of the Royal College of Music. The other eleven copies belonged to Wesley himself and bear his signature, but it cannot be established whether the copy of the twelfth voluntary, and therefore the alterations in it, also belonged to him. Some of the alterations, for example the E flats in bar 77 and the E natural in bar

79, are either obvious corrections or merely warnings which do not change the reading. Others such as the B flat in bar 30, could represent the corrections of printers* errors but the original printed readings are not impossible, and therefore it would be helpful to know who made the alterations. Finally, there are some alterations, for instance those in bars 2,5 and 6, which seem very unlikely to be printers' errors, but rather to be straightforward changes in the text. Again it would be helpful to know whether these represent Wesley's own second thoughts, or another organist's improvements. The least that can be said is that all the manuscript alterations in this copy seem sensible, and tend to improve rather than mar the original version.

The last movement gives this voluntary a balance quite differ• ent from anything else in 0P.3> It is the logical conclusion, so far as 114

the finale is concerned, of the tendency seen in the two unpublished vol-,

untaries of 1817. The compromise with the loud ending made by those two -

works has disappeared, leaving a quiet, unpretentious movement, in which

the tension and grandeur of the previous movement is gently dissipated,

and given a more distant perspective. A sinuous, song-like melody forms

the first part of this "Short Piece", giving way to a middle section char•

acterised by a more lively bass line; finally the first part returns to

bring the work to a peaceful conclusion. Surprisingly, the simple tern•

ary form of this movement is unique in Wesley's organ music,

Wesley was not the only orgran composer of the time who experi•

mented with making the finale a deliberate anticlimax to what had gone

before. It has already been mentioned that in 1804 William Russell had

published a Voluntary in E minor with an overall form very similar to

that of Wesley's Opo6 No.l2. A line can be drawn from the brief slow movement for quiet organ which concludes Russell's voluntary, through

Wesley's voluntaries of 1817 and Ope6 No. 12, to the last movements of

Mendelssohn's third and sixth Grgan Sonatas, written in 1844 and 1845, which fulfil just the same function. In another medium, Wesley had used the same idea in his Piano Sonata of 1808. Here, a prelude ending on a half close, and a dramatic large-scale fugue on a subject by Salomon, are followed by an undemonstrative finale written on a much smaller scale. EX.58 115

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I •e S. 125 CHAPTER X VARIATIONS

The group of organ pieces which Wesley wrote in 1817 includes, in

addition to the voluntaries in D and B flat, the best of his few sets of

variations,

Wesley's variations were not intended for church services. Their

purpose was to provide lighter entertainment for the less musical sections

of his audiences at organ recitals. Because of this, they are all, with

the exception of those in Opo6 No.5, based on popular tunes.

There are only two independent sets of variations extant which were published during Wesley's own lifetime. One is based on "Ctod Save the King", the other on "Rule Britannia", They were published in No, 1 of Beauties for the Organ by W, and D, Galloway. The autographs, which are at the

Royal College of Music, are not dated, but an approximate date is given by the fact that the firm of publishers existed only for about two years up to 1816, There are three variations on "God Save the King", only one on

"Rule Britannia", and both are very slight works.

There are two fiu*ther sets of variations, again of little musical importance, which exist only in printed editions published after Wesley's death, so that it is impossible to be sure that they were originally true organ works, and not written for the piano. One set is on "The Old Christ• mas Carol", a version of "God Rest You Merry", the other on "An Old Eng^ lish Melody" which, according to the editor, Vincent Novello, "was one that

Samuel Wesley's old nurse used to sing to him when he was quite a little boy". There are also variations on various popular melodies in manuscripts dating from Wesley's last years.

Finally there is this second set of variations on "God Save the

King", completed on December 1st 1817. It is Wesley's only considerable example of the form written for the organ. There are eight variations and a coda, the latter being a feature shared with the first set of variations on this theme. The National Anthem is divided into two parts, each part repeated, in the usual manner; the variations which follow show a consid- 126

erable degree of .imagination and individual character, to the point of causing the original melody to recede into the background during much of the work.

Ex.61 gives the first part of the theme and its treatment in each

of the variations.

Variation I is strictly in two parts. The bass throughout the

variation is identical to that which Wesley put to his theme. Above it

there is a florid melodic line, in which the outline of the original mel•

ody can still be made out, although it is very much obscured.

Variation II is derived from the harmonic scheme of the theme ra•

ther than its melody. There are two and sometimes three parts, rich in

syncopation and suspensions, above a moving bass, which is mostly in

quavers.

Variation III moves entirely in semiquavers. It is mostly in two

parts which are frequently imitative. Again the harmony of the theme is

more in evidence than the melody, which is barely suggested.

Variation IV sees a restatement of the melody in the tenor, while

above it there is a descant, probably intended to be played in a contrast•

ing tone colour.

Variation V betrays no hint of the melody. It is in three or four

parts with the frequent suspensions forming an important element in its

character.

Variation VI again keeps to the harmonic outline of the theme but avoids almost all reference to the melody. There is a passage in octaves at the beginning of the second part, derived not from the melody but from the bass, while towards the end there is a degree of chromaticism.

Variation VII has a graceful imitative opening. The original melody can be detected in the first part, but is absent from the second.

Variation VIII achieves the grand full effect with which Wesley liked to end his longer sets of variations. The first part of this var• iation in particular is a fine piece of four part hannony. The melody of 127

"God Save the King" returns in the second part, shared between soprano and

bass.

The coda has an improvised sound. This is especially true of the

first ten bars, which are based on the repetition of two rhythms

J. S J (bars 11-12 of the theme) and J J J J. / J (bars 1-2).

There is a further variation on the second part of the theme to complete

the work, extended by a pause after the fourth bar, the augmentation of the

fifth bar, and an extra cadence at the end.

As has already been implied, these variations are based on a harmon•

ic rather than melodic formula. However, each variation does not have an

identical scheme of harmony; it is rather that the harmony of each vari•

ation fits the melody of the theme, even when it is not actually there.

Unlike the two sets of variations published by William and Daniel

Galloway, which have detailed directions for registration, this set has no

directions at all. However, the characters of the variations suggest that

with the coda they fall into three groups of three. Variations I and IV

should almost certainly be played on two manuals.

Quiet Variation I IV VII

Louder II V

Loud III VI VIII (Full without Trumpet)

Very loud Coda (Full with Trumpet)

Like the other organ pieces of 1817, the variations end with a cryptic inscription; in this case it appears to read, "sink, P,0' .

In the early nineteenth century the National Anthem seemed as suit• able a theme for variations as any other well-known melody. It is unfort• unate for Wesley that now there are few people prepared to take such a work

seriously. Nonetheless, those who can listen to variations on "God Save the King" without embarrassment will be able to appreciate an attractive work of some merit and perhaps a little humour. 128 l\ EX.61

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4' BE 130 CHAPTER XI

THE HARDING VOLUNTARIES

In a letter (British Museum Add. Ms.350l2) to his son, Samuel

Sebastian, written on August 1st 1825, Wesley writes:

"I have written to Harding (and I think your mother will hear from him by Wednesday) nothing doubting that he will come forward with the requisite £5,"

Since at that time £5 was the conventional "fee" for a dedication,

this letter indicates that Wesley had just contacted John Harding about

the set of six voluntaries of which he did indeed receive the dedication.

In an advertisement attached to an Encyclopaedia or Dictionary of Music,

also dated 1825, the publisher, Thomas Preston, announces that he has six

voluntaries by Samuel Wesley "in the press". These six voluntaries must

be those which Wesley dedicated to Harding, and so they must have appeared

in print late in 1825 or early in 1826. They were published in two sets of

three, and each set cost four shillings.

The Harding Voluntaries share a number of characteristics with the

last voluntary of Op.6. Wesley again uses English speed directions, show•

ing the same hint of musical nationalism that can be seen in the German

speed directions sometimes used by Beethoven and Schubert. There is still

the tendency to replace the fugue, which had become a regular feature of

the voluntary in the second half of Op.6, with freer contrapuntal forms.

The influence of the "Short Piece" remains and shows itself in a variety

of ways. The voluntaries tend towards a less rhetorical, more intimate

style. A number of individual movements are remarkably like "Short Pieces",

following the lead of the last movement of 0Po6 No.12, Some of these, for

instance the opening movements of the first and second voluntaries, have more in common with Wesley's later Short pieces, which are duller in char•

acter and often seem to be competently written examples of background music, but others, for example the second movement of Voluntary I, still have the

slightly quirky brightness of the Twelve Short Pieces.

In one respect the Harding Voluntaries differ from nearly all 131

Wesley's other works in this form. It was his normal practice to join at

least two movements in a voluntary by means of a half close. There is not one voluntary in Op.6 in which all the movements are independent. The

"voluntaries" formed by the Twelve Short Pieces naturally consist entirely of independent movements, but outside this work only the Harding Voluntar- ies demonstrate this characteristic to any great extent. Indeed they con• tain only two movements that do not end on a full close in the tonic. On the other hand, after the three and four movement "voluntaries" of the

Twelve Short Pieces, Wesley returns to his old preference for voluntaries in fewer movements. Four of the Harding Voluntaries have only two move• ments, while the other two have three,

Wesley's directions for registration show little change. He con• tinues to avoid the frequent or extended use of solo stops, and to make more gradations in the strength of the chorus than had been usual in the previous century. The one new tendency, already to be seen twice in Op.6

(Nos. 5 and 12) and so not entirely new, is the suggestion of alternative registrations. This occurs three times in the first two voluntaries, but not at all in the remainder.

The first voluntary, in D major, begins conservatively with one of the few movements which Wesley wrote for Diapasons throughout. It begins in three parts, but typically the middle part all but disappears before long, while the top part develops into a flowing melody over an accompany• ing bass. When this movement, together with others from this set of vol• untaries, was republished in 1882, the editor, J. Pittman, felt obliged to add a middle part to many of the passages which Wesley had left in two parts, indicating an academic despair at the way in which Wesley's middle part disappears, returns for a couple of notes, and then disappears again.

The second movement (Ex.62), marked "Lively" is a bright chattery solo for the 4 ft. Flute or Dulciana, a typical "Short Piece". As in the last movement of Op.6 No.12, the same solo stop is used throughout the movement, which constitutes, for Wesley, an unusually extended solo. The last move- 132 ment is a little fugue on a simple subject which grows naturally out of a brief.chordal introduction. In fact, as Ex,63 shows, the subject fits over the harmony of the introduction itself.

The main interest of the second voluntary lies in the second move- Q ment, the first being an unpretentious prelude in g with a brief solo for

Swell or Cremona, The second movement, one of the six movements in the set marked 'Lively', is another example of Wesley's employing fugue as just one element in a movement which relies on ritornello form for its basic structure. However, the treatment of the idea differs from that in Op.6

No»12. In this movement Wesley uses changes of registration to clarify the form instead of employing Full Organ throughout, and makes the fugal element a feature of the ritornello rather than the episodes. The first eleven bars serve merely as an introduction, and do not appear again. The remainder of the first section is in fact a fugal exposition, the only irregularity be• ing that the third voice presents the subject, like the second voice, in the dominant rather than the usual tonic. However, the subject is accom• panied from its very first entry, so that there is none of the gradual build• up of voices which one associates with the beginning of a fugue. Indeed, at no time is the subject given any special prominence until it is presented in stretto almost at the end. Although in the final movements of 0p«6 No.23 and the first voluntary dedicated to Harding Wesley had avoided starting with the fugue subject, it had eventually been presented in the conventional way, making clear its status as an important theme, in this movement, the subject has become merely a convenient device for maintaining the flow of counterpoint. There are three sections for "Diapasons and Principal with

(or without) Fifteenth and Twelth" (sic), which are based on the fugue subject, divided by two sections for Diapasons, in which the subject does not appear, although they are dominated by related rhythms.

In the third voluntary, the Prelude and Fugue, which dominated the last part of Op.6, stages a retvirn, and brings with it many of the features which are notably absent in the other Harding Voluntaries. The slow first movement immediately strikes a grandiose attitude with strong dotted rhythms 133 on the Full Organ, soon to be contrasted with more feminine sounding phra• ses on the Swell, Wesley's liking for dissonance is well illustrated by passages such as that. in.Ex.64. As in all Wesley's previous preludes and fugrues, the two movements are linked by the prelude's ending on an imper• fect cadence (in.this case prolonged by a six bar dominant pedal), even though the general tendency in the Harding Voluntaries is for each move• ment to be complete in itself. The fugfue, composed on an interesting sub• ject (Ex.65), is energetic and effective almost to the end, but after a pause, which gives the organist plenty of time in which to obey the in• struction to add the Trumpet, Wesley chooses to conclude the voluntary with a coda, completely lacking in counterpoint and quite iinconnected with the subject, which is something of an anticlimax.

Wesley employs the organ pedals (or rather pedal, since only one

note is involved) twice in the third voluntary, to hold one dominant ped•

al in each movement. His use of the pedals in these voluntaries is even more cautious than in the voluntaries of Op.6.

The second volume of voluntaries begins with an example that is

striking for the stress which it lays on melody as opposed to counterpoint.

It is one of the few Wesley voluntaries in which there is no trace of fugue«

As a result of the music's strong melodic character, the sweetened melan•

choly of the first movement, and the unusual adoption of a dance rhythm in

the second movement, this voluntary serves as an especially clear example

of the more intimate style discernible in Wesley's voluntaries of this per•

iod. The first movement, based on a tender melody in E minor (Ex.66), al•

ternating Diapasons and Swell, leads into a movement in E major marked

"Chearful (sic) not brisk". It is unusual in a number of ways. Firstly

it is in the rhythm of a gavotte, and the main tune is somewhat similar to

the gavotte in Twelve Short Pieces (Ex, 67). Secondly it is in the form of

a rondo, being one of only three rondos in Wesley's organ works (the others

are in Op.6 No.6, and A Short and Familiar Voluntary, written soon after

the Harding Voluntaries). Finally the directions for registration are of

interest. The movement begins with Diapasons and Principal. At the beg- 134

inning of the main episode the Fifteenth is added, and the Twelfth is brought in for the coda. This cumulative registration was to become common• place later in the centviry, and still is now, but it was not called for in organ music written before the middle part of the last century. Wesley had often used the idea of making succeeding movements in a voluntary build up to a Full Organ finale (the whole of the Tvelve Short Pieces is built on this idea), but this was the first time that he used the same procedure in a single movement. The addition of the Trumpet stop for the last few bars of movements for Full Organ in Op.6 No. 12, and the third and sixth volun• taries of the present set, may be seen as a move in the same direction.

The last two voluntaries present many parallels to their counter•

parts in the first volume, numbers two and three. Like the second volun•

tary the fifth is in two movements, a quiet slow movement followed by a

louder fast movement in which elements of fugue and ritornello are combined.

The sixth voluntary recalls the third in its grander effect and its ending

with a fugue.

Wesley's later style of writing for Diapasons is well illustrated

by the first movement of Voluntary V* Most of the musical argument is

carried on in the treble and bass with occasional wisps of counterpoint

and odd notes to complete the harmony in the space between them. Conse•

quently, with the middle voice in rudimentary form where it exists at all,

the top part develops into a free rhapsodic melody over an accompanying bass. In his third period, represented by the voluntaries of Op.6, Wes• ley had made the conventional three part texture of Diapason movements more complex by adding a fourth part. Thus Wesley's fourth period practice of reducing the textmre of his Diapason movements to something thinner than the conventional three parts presents a strong contrast to his earlier work.

Having based his ritornello on harmony and rhythm in Op.6 Nb.l2 and fugue in the second voluntary dedicated to Harding, Wesley now turns to a tune (Ex.68), which is presented first on the Great, and then as a

Swell solo over a Diapason bass. A fugal exposition on a brief subject. 135

(Ex.69), still in the tonic, leads to a return of the ritornello in G (the dominant). The pattern is. repeated: further treatment of the fugue subject leads back to the ritornello, now in C major once more. In the coda which follows, Wesley again adds a further stop to the chorus, this time the Sesquialtera.

There are only three voluntaries by Wesley, of those still in ex•

istence, which begin with a fast movement, and of those three the sixth

dedicated to Harding is the first and most substantial. It represents an

interesting compromise between the sonata and the traditional voluntary.

The three movements fall into the fast - slow - fast pattern which is typ•

ical of the sonata but which makes this work, as a voluntary, unique in

Wesley's output. The slow movement is a simple song^like piece 'in binary form which could be transferred to a piano sonata without a note needing to be changed. On the other hand, the first movement develops a form of its own which owes nothing to sonata form, while the last movement is a fugue, and carries rather more weight than the first movement, a balance more typ• ical of the voluntary than the sonata.

The main theme of the first movement, which is marked "Spirited", is a slightly eccentric melody used in both its direct and (freely) inverted forms (Ex.70), Development of this theme on Full Organ is interspersed with contrasting passages for Full Swell, Swell solo over Diapason bass, and Choir, Much of the development is by migans of strong sequences such as those quoted in Ex. 71.

The middle movement is among Wesley's most successful miniatures.

It is in E flat major, the subdominant, and this is another indication of the influence of the sonata on this voluntary, since very few of Wesley's voluntaries contain a movement which is not in the tonic. Each half of its binary form begins on "Soft Choir Organ" and ends with a solo on the Swell,

Rather than modulate to the dominant, the first half moves to G minor, which is the mediant minor. The final passage of this movement (Ex.72) well illustrates the hallmarks of Wesley's lyrical style, the clash between 136

the sharp and flat seventh (E flat and E natural in bar 13), the long flow• ing passages in even notes (bars 13, 14), the syncopated rhythms (bar 15), and the chromaticism (bars 15, 16); particularly characteristic is the use of the flattened sixth in the final cadence.

The voluntary ends with a lively fugue in triple time which owes

much to the fugue in E flat minor from Book I of the 48, The subjects are

remarkably similar (Ex.73), and both fugues make important use of stretti,

although Wesley makes no attempt to match the complexities at his model.

There are two stretti in Wesley's fugue, each involving two parts of the

octave. In the first the parts enter at a bar's distance, while in the

second the distance between them is reduced to one beat. If taken fast

enough, this fug^ue sounds effective, but there remain certain weaknesses.

The episodes rely too heavily on over-extended sequences (which, it must

be said, moved the writer of Wesley's obituary to tears, apparently tears

of rapture not despair), while, like the fugue in the third voluntary, the

movement has a weak homophonic ending, which gains what effect it can from

the addition of the Trumpet.

There is one other voluntary, which was published separately, but

nonetheless belongs, spiritually and chronologically, with the other vol•

untaries described in this chapter. Wesley called it A Short and Familiar

Voluntary, and it was published (and entered at Stationers' Hall) in Feb•

ruary 1827. The term "familiar" refers to the intimate, unpretentious

style of the work, and might have been applied to the voluntaries of 1825 with equal justice. This voluntary bears an especially close affinity to

the fourth Harding voluntary. Like that work it is in two movements, the first quiet and pastoral in character, the second a cheerful rondo.

The dominant characteristics of these voluntaries are compactness of design and moderation of feeling. After the expansive, all-embracing grandeur of the Op.6 voluntaries, they seem limited both in scale and in expression. Where in the earlier voluntaries Wesley aspired to the sub• lime, in those of the decade up to 1827 he was content to be effective. 137

Because diu>ing this period he attempted less, Wesley could not compose works of the same calibre as the Full Voluntary or Op,6 No,10, but he achieved a more consistent level of success than in his earlier compos• itions, and still produced a few works, such as.the second Harding volun• tary, which may be numbered amongst the best voluntaries of the period. 138

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CHAPTER XII

THE LATER LARGE-SCALE VOLUNTARIES

After the appearance of the voliintaries dedicated to John Harding

in 1825, there comes another series of volimtaries which were published

separately during the last twelve years of "Wesley's life. This group of works has been singularly unfortunate in that a number are now lost, but what remains showsthat Wesley had returned to the large scale on which he had worked in Qpus 6. Apart from the Short and Familiar Voluntary, pub• lished in 1827, which is very much in the mould of the Harding Voluntar• ies, and the Loud Voluntary in D which was published with the Six Intro• ductory Movements in 1831, each of Wesley's later published voluntaries is dedicated to a fellow musician.

Voluntary in C minor dedicated to Thomas Adams

Voluntary in G dedicated to Thomas Adams

Voluntary in G dedicated to Henry Gauntlett

Voluntary in G minor dedicated to William Linley

Voluntary in B flat dedicated to Thomas Attwood.

Only the voluntaries in C minor and B flat are still extant in the form in which they were originally published. The fugue from the Voluntary in

G dedicated to Thomas Adams has survived in an arrangement by W.T.Best.

The voluntaries dedicated to Gauntlett and Linley have disappeared com• pletely.

The history of the Volimtary in C minor is somewhat obscure. It is in three movements, a prelude evidently for Full Organ, an "Arietta", and a long fugfue of some 150 bars. The autograph of the fugfue is dated

24th July 1826, but the whole voluntary was published by D'Almaine and Co., a firm which did not begin trading until about 1834. Thus Wesley composed and published at least three voluntaries while the fugue in C minor, with or without its preceding movements, remained in manuscript. When it was eventually published it appeared as the first of a series of Exercises for the improvement of the hands, a series, however, which may never have-been continued. 143

In his Autobiography Wesley said of Thomas Adams, a London organ•

ist and composer nineteen years his junior, "Among our modern organists

there seems to be none of more versatile ability than Mr. Thomas Adams.

His great skill and ability in the management of the pedals are deservedly

admired." it may be on this account that Adams received the dedication of

the voluntary which contained Wesley's first fugue in which the pedals are entrusted with playing the subject.

According to his obituary that subject was not composed by Wesley himself.

"This composition originated in rather a laughable circumstance. A schoolmaster, a friend of the com• poser's, and a tolerable amateur, considered that fugue writing was a mechanical sort of operation, not requiring any great stretch of imagination; and wishing to put Wesley to the test, gave him this subject, at the same time desiring the composer to give him one in return. This was done, but although Wesley produced his, that of the schoolmaster was never forthcoming."

The fugue is conceived on the grandest scale. The subject is pre• sented both rectus (Ex,74) and inversus before the two versions are com• bined. Then, after 113 bars, the subject is presented on the pedals in augmentation, a device used by Bach in his Great Prelude and Fugue in C major for organ. Wesley then reaches a dominant pedal, prolonged for ten bars, over which the subject is presented in double augmentation (Ex.75),

Only in the Full Voluntary in D minor, where he makes equally daring use of augmentation, does Wesley achieve a fugal climax of similar power.

The first two movements of the voluntary, which may have been com• posed much later, are of slighter build, and the fact thiat they do not appear in the autograph of 1826 may lend some credence to the obituary's account of the fugue(s origin. The first movement, marked Maestoso, suggests the scale of what is to come with its solemn tone and dramatic use of Wesley's favourite suspensions and dotted rhythms, but without be• ing anything more than an introduction itself. The Arietta would have been perfectly at home in a collection of Short Pieces; it is a ternary struct• ure with a wistful little tune written over the ubiquitous descending bass 144 (Ex.76). Neither movement makes any use of the pedals so that their full effect is saved for the entry of the augmented subject in the fugue.

It might just be mentioned that W.T.Best did not share Wesley's

high regard for Adams' pedal technique. According to him, Adams* idea of

playing Bach on the organ was to serve up one of the 48, putting in the odd

pedal point with his feet "when his bunions were propitious."

It is only through W.T.Best that we know anything of the other vol•

untary which Wesley dedicated to Adams. It is mentioned in Wesley's obit•

uary but not in the catalogue of Wesley's works which follows it. It does

however include the item preludes and Fugues, or Exercises for the Organ.

The Voluntary in C minor dedicated to Adams is of course the first, indeed

the only proven part of this work, and it seems at least feasible that the

Voluntary in G, dedicated to the same man, is the second. Fortunately the

obituary contains some remarks on the fugue from this voluntary which have

made it possible to identify it with a Fugue in G major arranged by W.T.Best

and published by him in Book XI of his Cecilia series of organ music which

appeared from 1883. There is no trace at all of the original voluntary,

and therefore no trace of the other movements.

The fugue is even longer than that in the Voluntary in C minor,

and almost invites comparison with that in the Duet of 1812. Indeed there

are some similarities. As in both the C minor Voluntary and the Duet,

there is an especially long dominant pedal towards the close, and the sud•

den and brief modulation to E flat major which occurs in the middle of the

Duet fugue finds an echo in the last few bars of the G major piece (Ex,77),

It is far less successful here than in the Duet,; and seems merely to "rock

the boat" at the last minute. The most interesting link between the two

fugues, however, is the insertion of a quiet lyrical episode shortly before

the end. The Duet fugue had been unique amongst Wesley's works in this re•

spect for fifteen years or more until the device was reintroduced in this fugue and also the fugue in the Voluntary of 1829 dedicated to Attwood.

The most striking development to be seen in these late voluntaries is the greater variety of registration used in the course of the fugues. The ex- 145

ception is the Voluntary in C minor in which there are no directions for

registration at all.

In his arrangement W.ToBest turned Wesley's fugue into a virtuoso

work for the late nineteenth century organ, with an extremely difficult

pedal part. It is impossible to be sure what additions he made in the pro•

cess, but it does seem likely that, as Wesley wrote it, this fugue, like

its companion in C minor, had a fairly full pedal part, to take further

advantage of Adams' "great skill and ability" in that department.

The Voluntary in B flat is the third, and at present the only ex•

tant representative, of three voluntaries dedicated to Henry Gauntlett,

William Linley, and Thomas Attwood respectively. The first two voluntar•

ies were at least until 1960 to be found in the library at Clare College,

Cambridge, but have since disappeared. As it is hard to believe that the

books have actually been destroyed, it is to be hoped that they will event•

ually reappear. Attwood had long been a friend of W&sley's, and since his

appointment as orgranist of St. Paul's (in competition with Charles Wesley),

Samuel had often deputised for him. The voluntary which he dedicated to

Attwood was completed on February 27th 1829, and published by Hodsall, who

entered it at Stationer's Hall on April 27th 1830, Like the Voluntary in

C minor, it is in three movements and is dominated by a long final fugue.

The first movement, marked "Moderately Slow", combines a chaste opening for Diapasons, recalling Stanley, with a dialogue between Swell and Dia• pasons more typical of the nineteenth century (Ex,78), An energetic move• ment for Diapasons, Principal and Fifteenth which follows, contains a brief but interesting solo for the Trumpet (Ex,79). Not only does Wesley turn his back on the eighteenth century convention of using the Trumpet in the same way as an orchestral natural Trumpet (he had already done this in Op.6

No,4) but he pays scant regard to the fanfare style of writing for it which was an even stronger convention. An earlier age would have thought his rap• id passage-work more suited to the Cornet. So far as one can teil from his extant work, these are Wesley's first notes for the Trumpet stop in almost 146

a quarter of a century. The second movement ends quietly over a dominant

pedal, in preparation for the fugue.

Although it does not employ those special effects of which Wesley

was so fond (extreme augmentation, long pedals and stretti are not to be

found), the Fugue is one of the most dramatic Wesley wrote. It has a very

distinctive subject which ranges over an octave and a fourth (Ex.80). It

strides down by intervals which increase by a semitone at each step, and

then climbs smoothly up again with a scale of quavers. The subject is in•

verted and also appears with its accents shifted: it is rarely absent in

the first part of the fugue, there being fifteen entries in the first hun• dred bars, yet in the remaining sixty bars the subject appears only three

times. In many of Wesley's fugues there is a tendency for the subject to

appear less frequently towards the end. An extreme case is the Voluntary

in G major dedicated to Adams, which has just been discussed. There are no entries of the subject at all in the last sixty of that fugue's 185 bars. Wesley was of course famous above all as an improviser of fugues, and his ability to develop a great climax to an improvised fugue, in which he gave full rein to his fancy, was especially admired. Those of his fugues which have long discxirsive final sections in which the subject is alluded to but seldom quoted in full, probably have much in common with Wesley's procedure in improvisations. In the less successful examples, the effect is one of rambling, but in the best fugues, and the fugue in B flat is one, the result is as impressive as contemporary accounts of Wesley's improvis• ations lead one to expect. A series of vigorous sequences bring the music to a five bar pedal on C at bar 85. It creates a considerable sense of ex• pectancy which is answered by an entry of the subject in C major on the

Swell accompanied in the left hand by the Diapasons. At the time this was an original stroke. It has already been mentioned that in the Duet of 1812 and the Voluntary in G dedicated to Adams (which may of coiirse have been written before or after this fugfue) Wesley had inserted short quiet epis• odes using subsidiary material towards the end of a fugue. Many earlier 147 composers, notably Stanley, had written extensive episodes of a free non- contrapuntal nature in the course of their fugues, and Adams had written a fugue in three distinct sections each to be played on.a different manual.

But a sudden, unexpected change to a quieter manual, at the point of .an entry of the subject, was new. When Wesley returns to the Full Organ, twelve bars later and after two further entries of the subject, he tempor• arily abandons both his contrapuntal texture and the subject, and adopts block chords (Ex.81) in the region of B flat and E flat minor. The textia:*e soon becomes freer, but the subject does not return, so that at bar 116, after twelve bars of unexpected quiet and fifteen bars without any sign of the subject, Wesley is able to stage a full recapitulation, subject, answer and subject, as dramatic in its effect as the recapitulation in sonata form.

The final entry of the subject is completed in bar 128; the rest is coda, in which one finds massive chords with dramatic harmony (bars 132-143), a ris• ing sequence with allusions to the scale figure in the subject (bars 144-

148), a more sentimental downward sequence on the Swell (bars 149-153), and a magnificent approach to the final plagal cadence from the extreme flatward region of D flat. This is no text-book fugue, but its dramatic impact is undeniable.

The autograph of the Loud Voluntary in D is dated Sept. 6th 1830, and although it is by no means a miniature, it is not on the scale of the other voluntaries discussed in this chapter. It is a Prelude and Fugue directed to be played on Full Organ for all but two bars of echo in the first movement. The first four bars, to all appearance a parody of the waltz, must have seemed sufficiently bizarre when they were written, but now seem even more so, since it is impossible to hear them without immed• iately thinking of Rubenstein's Melody in F (Ex.82). After this extrava• gance, the prelude settles down to normality and ends firmly in the dom• inant. The second movement bears the title "Fug^etta", the only instance of the term in Wesley's organ works, but it is 86 bars long and only a fughetta by comparison with the fugues of 150 bars and more in the vol- 148

untaries of the previous few years. At one point the player is given the

option of using the pedals or the left hand in octaves for an entry of the

subject in the bass. The tendency to make much greater use of the pedals

is as marked in this voluntary as in its larger fellows. The fugue is con•

siderably more relaxed than those in the greater voluntaries, eapecially

in the largely homophonic episodes, but the final section, though less

strenuous, makes effective use of many Wfesley trade marks (Ex.83). After

a passage of rimning quavers in the bass under held chords (there is a very

similar effect in the fugue of Opo6 No,lO), a sequence rises rapidly to the main event of the fvigue, a passage in octaves, for which Wesley adds a

Trumpet and the pedals (no choice for the orgfanist this time). The octaves

lead in their turn to a nine bar dominant pedal, over which the subject and

its answer (both duly marked) are heard once more; and after the resolution onto a tonic pedal of exactly equal length, the fugue ends with a few de•

tached chords.

It is obviously dangerous to generalise about a group of voluntar•

ies when so many of them are missing. However, from those that remain, it

seems that, with the exception of the Loud Voluntary, Wesley preferred the three movement form to the Prelude and Fugue which dominates the latter part of Opus 6, The Voluntary in B flat follows a plan which Wesley had used on many previous occasions, starting as far back as Op.6 No.l,. As

the obituary mentions that the voluntary dedicated to William Linley con• tained an Arietta, it seems likely that it had the same plan as the Vol• untary in C minor where an Arietta is placed between a grand introduction and a final fugue. Thus the influence of the Short Piece on even the most large-scale of Wesley's later orgran works is demonstrated. In the fugues

Wesley continues to aim at the grandest possible style. In addition to all the devices used in the fugues of Qpus 6, he now calls to his aid more extensive use of the pedals, and greater variety of registration which helps him to achieve more dramatic contrasts and more powerful climaxes. 149 EX.74- ± P mm

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OIAPTEH XIII

DIDACTIC MUSIC

There has always been a strong tradition of music written avowedly

or actually for the purposes of teaching. In the nineteenth century the

volume of such music became greater than ever, ranging, in the realm of the

piano, from the technical exercises of Clementi and Czerny to the studies

of Liszt and Chopin, which possess a significance reaching far beyond mere

digital dexterity. In the last ten years of the eighteenth century John

liarsh and Jonas Blewitt had written brief tutors and sets of pieces direct•

ed at the young English organist. Wesley's contributions to this genre date

from the latter part of his life. Altogether he wrote five pieces or sets

of pieces for the organ described as "exercises" or "for young organists"o

Six Organ Voluntaries composed for the use of young

organists Op,36.

Six Fugrues with Introductions for young organists.

A Book of Interludes for young organists.

Studio for the Organ exemplified in a series of exercises.

Voluntary in C minor "intended as Exercises for the

improvement of the hands," dedicated to Thomas Adams.

The Voluntary in C minor is only an exercise in the sense that

Scarlatti's Essercizi or Bach's Clavierubung are exercises, and has there•

fore already been discussed along with Wesley's other late large-scale vol•

untaries. Since the Interludes and the Studio for Organ are both lost, only

the Voluntaries 0Po36 and the Six Fugues remain as examples of Wesley's

teaching music.

The Six Voluntaries 0Po36 exist both in autograph and in print.

The autograph, which is in the Royal College of Misic, is undated, but the printed edition, published by John Dean of 148, N6w Bond Street^ can be

dated by its plate numbers to late 1831 or early 1832. These voluntaries

are not "studies" of the type written by Czerny and many others for the piano in that they do not present special technical difficulties for the

"young organist" to overcome, Wesley seems mostly to be concerned with , r- - 160

what 0!tie might call a good organ technique rather than an advanced keyboard

technique, and-indeed, the need for great rapidity in early nineteenth cen•

tury organ music was much less than it had been eighty years earlier when

the Cornet Voluntary held sway. Much of the writing in Op.36 seems aimed

at developing skilful legato playing, and most of Wesley's fingering is de•

signed for this end. All the voluntaries except the third require rudiment•

ary use of the pedals, but at a time when fully developed pedal parts were

an extreme rarity in English organ music, the young organist is not expected

to show any particular skill in their use. Wesley's didactic aim in these

voluntaries appears to have been to produce a series of pieces which would

introduce the student to idiomatic organ writing and the problems of touch

peculiar to organ playing. The brevity of the voluntaries would enable the

young organist to concentrate on short passages, rather than to dissipate

his efforts in pieces of normal length.

The voluntaries of Op.36 need to be considered not only as teaching

pieces but also in relation to Wesley's other voluntaries. From this point

of view they are seen to carry to its logical conclusion the tendency to•

wards compression already observed in the voluntaries dedicated to John

Harding, If those voluntaries could be described as "compact", those in

Qp.36 are "miniature". The lengths of the movements vary from 11 bars to

34 bars with one exceptional case of 69 bars (of quick three in a bar however). All have two or three movements, but although the first, second and fifth voluntaries follow the Twelve Short Pieces and most of the Hard• ing Voluntaries in consisting of independent movements, the other three voluntaries, coerced by their exceptionally small dimensions, use the technique of stretching one binary structure across two movanents (Ex,84).

This arrangement has a superficial resemblance to the conventional intro• duction leading through an imperfect cadence to another movement of greater importance, but here the two sections or movements are of equal weight, and neither is capable of standing alone. It is far better to look on these two movements as forming one binary structure in which the two repeated 161 sections are not theraatically related and differ in speed and metre (the second movement is always faster), thus compressing two movements into.the space normally taken by one. Naturally many of these brief movonents are similar in style to Wesley's short pieces, although they are less fully developed and leiss individual than his best examples. Several of the final movements are markedly jolly in character (Ex.85) and may represent an attempt to appeal to the young player's taste. There is just one fugue, the last movement of the sixth voluntary, and in thus closing the set, Wes• ley maintains the old eighteenth century tradition which he had observed in the Harding Voluntaries. One type of movement notable for its complete ab- isence is that using a sold stop. It seems a strange omission in a work which is didactic in aim and might therefore be expected to include as many different types as possible. However, Wesley's general dislike of.solo effects in voluntaries seemsto have extended even to examples as brief as these, and it must be remembered that by 1831, when these voluntaries were probably written, the solo stop was not looked on with the favour it had once enjoyed.

Bound with the autograph of Op.36 in the library of the Royal Coll• ege of Music is the autograph of another organ work entitled Six Fugues with Introductions for young organists. Op.36 is written very roughly, the movements of voluntaries sometimes being in the wrong order with explan• atory notes to put them right, but these fugues are presented with great care, even having the title inscribed on the first page. The only thing lacking, unfortunately, is a date. They give the appearance of having been carefully prepared for publication, yet there is no indication of their ever having appeared- in print. There are three possibilities as far as the pub• lication of these fugfues is concerned; either they were published under the title given them in the autograph but no printed copy or advertisement has survived; or they were published under a different title and perhaps form the otherwise lost Studio for the Organ; or they were not published at all, in which case the only "young organists" who could have used the music were 162

Wesley's own pupils, and the fair copy might have been made for their bene•

fit. Of these possibilities, the second is the most fanciful, while the

third is perhaps slightly more likely than the first. If indeed the fugues

were never published, it is of course quite possible that Wesley intended to

have them printed but could not find a publisher prepared to take them. This

last possibility gains some support from the quality of much of the music.

The introductions are very short and very unenterprising, consisting

merely of a string of commonplace harmonic progressions. All the substance

of the pieces is in the fugues. These represent a type of fugue which is very common in the organ works of Wesley's last ten years. Its distinguish•

ing features are a very thin texture consisting usually of only two parts, considerable length (100 bars or more), and a general effect of rambling.

There are frequent passages in octaves, which sometimes sound effective, while modulations are sometimes effected by a bald succession of block chords, which never sounds effective. The best of these six fugues is the fifth, in E tlatf which has a purposeful sounding subject very similar to that of the Fughetta in the Goldberg Variations (Ex,86), The episodes, which in the other fugues often sound aimless, have sufficient contrapuntal interest to be effective, while the subject is presented against a variety of interesting countersubjects. It is almost a genuine two part fugue, with only a few passages (usually when the subject appears in the bass) in three parts. It has no passages in octaves or successions of block chords, and maintains a sense of direction throughout its course, which is more than can be said for its fellowse They seem to reflect a decline in the powers of a composer now approaching seventy and finding it more difficult to sub• mit to the discipline of fugal composition. 163

7

IT'

1 164

i

EX. 8^ 165

CHAPTER XIV

THE CRGMi MUSIC OF WESLEY'S LAST YEARS

Wesley continued to write music for the organ to the end of his

life. Almost the last thing he wrote was the Fugue in B minor which he

played to Mendelssohn at Christ Church Newgate Street. With the possible

exceptions of the first two movements of the Voluntary in C minor, and the

Voluntary in G, both dedicated to Adams, none of "Wesley's organ music

written after 1831 was published. It is to be found in two manuscripts at

the British Museum, Add, 35006 and Add. 35007. Wesley gave the pieces in

Add. 35006 to his daughter, Eliza, for her eighteenth birthday, 6th May

1837. Some, at least, of the organ music in Add, 35007 was also written

for Eliza,

The organ music in Add. 35006 consists of two voluntaries in G and

D minor (that in G is entitled Introduction and Fugue), and an independent

Fugue in G, It seems likely that they were written not long before Wesley

gave them to his daughter, but it is not possible to be certain of this

since among the pieces not for organ is one written when Wesley was eight,

and another not written until two months after Eliza's birthday.

The Introduction and Fugue in G begins with a serene movement in binary form. Much of it is almost hymn-like in its texture, but a passage in the second part where the top line becomes more flowing, and consider• able use of syncopation towards the end of each part are enough to lend variety and avoid undue severity. The fugue which follows is most notable for its wedge-shaped subject (Ex.87), which Wesley must have remembered from a thirteen bar sketch in C major ftxreserved at the Royal College of

Music in Ms.21416) dating from some time between 1816 and 1829.

The Fugue in G is not one of Wesley's most successful works. It is over-long and given to extensive episodes unrelated to the subject, which are of little intrinsic interest, and forced and rapid modulations. The weaker fugues of Wesley's last years present many examples of both features.

This fugue ranges as far from G major as E flat major, unusual for Wesley 166

who generally keeps close to the tonic in fugues.

Perhaps the most interesting of the organ pieces in Add. 35006

is the untitled work (another Introduction- and Fugue) in D minor, since it

may give a glimpse of what one of Wesley's improvised fugues was like. The

Introduction in this case is very brief, a mere seven bars ending on a half

close. The double fugue which follows is built on the same two subjects

(the second slightly altered) as the Kyrie fugue in Mozart*s Requiem, The

coincidence of the same two subjects and the same key of D minor seems too

much for chance, and suggests that Wesley consciously based his fugue on

Mozart's subjects. Wesley very rarely used subjects by other composers in

his written fugues (the only examples are the Piano Sonata in D minor, and,

less certainly, the Voluntary in C minor dedicated to Adams), but he is fre• quently recorded as having improvised fugues, on given material. This, com• bined with its improvisatory character and comparative brevity, suggests that this fugue may have begun life as an improvisation. The construction is surprisingly taut. After entries in D minor, A minor and D minor again, the subjects appear in F major and G minor, each entry being prepared for by a brief episode. Then, after a much longer episode the subjects reappear in the tonic, extended to form a final climax in the coda. There is very little real counterpoint, save that produced by the combination of the sub• jects. Much of the fugue is in two parts, and where there are three parts, either two are forming a chordal background for the third, or else they are being used in a stereotyped sequential formula. There is some development of the second subject in the episodes but this development is melodic and sequential rather than contrapuntal. However, despite its simplicity, it is a highly effective piece, especially in the manner of its conclusion

(Ex.BB), The subjects enter in the tonic after a long episode and thus with added effect, Wesley then extends them by means of a rising sequence built on a very short motif (derived from the second subject) which ensures a rapid ascent to the note of climax which is the B flat in bar 50. It should be observed how the left hand part contributes to the effect by the downward 167 plunge of a seventh in bar 48, increasing the distance between the outer parts, and by the addition of inner notes from bar 49, The use of a rapid•

ly rising sequence in the approach to a final climax has been noted in other fugues by Wesley, for instance that in the Loud Voluntary of 1830.

The organ music in Add, 35007 falls into four categories, voluntar•

ies, short pieces, arrangements of popular tunes, and duets. The voluntar• ies are all of the Prelude and Fugue type, similar to those in Add. 35006,

One, in D, has its two movements in different parts of the manuscript, but there seems little doubt that they should go together, making a total of four voluntaries in the manuscript. Only one is dated, a Voluntary in F which was completed on October 18th 1836, The others are probably of sim•

ilar date. The fugues are similar both to those in Add. 35006 and to those

in the Six Fugues with Introductions for Young Organists. Two-part writing predominates with the subject being put against a succession of counter• points. The most distinctive of the four is the Voluntary in F. The con• ventional slow introduction is replaced by a quicker movement for Diapasons,

Principal and Fifteenth, marked "Cheerful", The fugue concludes with a

statement of the subject in octaves, a device which Wesley was to use again

in his very last organ fugue.

Discounting the autograph of three of the Introductory Movements

or Desk Voluntaries of 1830, the manuscript contains six short pieces.

Four of them form a group of Short Preludes. With none exceeding sixteen

bars, they seem to do for the short piece what Opus 36 did for the volxmtary.

They are arranged in an ascending circle of fifths, being in C, G, D and A

major. The watermark in the manuscript shows that they cannot have been

written earlier than 1834.

The arrangements of popular tunes to be found in Add. 35006 are all

written, at least in part, on three staves. Although at first sight this

suggests a stave for the pedals, the occasional three note chord on the

lowest stave shows that the truth is otherwise. Wesley used such arrange•

ments to entertain the less cultured sections of his audiences at organ 168

recitals. It .may be that these pieces date from the time of his visit to Bristol (1829-30) when it is recorded that he was assisted by his son, Samuel Sebastian, in which case they are virtually duets, although the Sec- ondo player is likely to be somewhat luider-employed.

The next pieces are certainly duets, Eliza Wesley wrote on the man•

uscript that they were "composed for me, and I used to play them with my

dear Father when a little girl". The Primo part is much fingered, so it

would appear that Eliza took that part, and her father the Secondo, There

are six duets, in effect short pieces for four hands, simple and unaffected

in style. The sixth duet has two movements, one marked "Moderately Slow"

leading into the second marked "Lively", There are also a further incom•

plete duet, and duet arrangements by Wesley of works by Handel, Mozart,

Bach and Pergolesi,

In addition to the music already mentioned. Add. 35007 contains two independent fugues. One, in C major, is copied very neatly with a thick-nibbed pen, probably not by Wesley himself. It is doubtful whether it dates from the same period as the rest of Add. 35007, containing much more three and four part writing than is usual in Wesley's fugues of the

1830s, Towards the end of the fugrue, there is a passage where the inverted subject enters over a dominant pedal which is strikingly similar to the equivalent point in the last movement of the C major Duet of 1812 (Ex,89),

The second fugue is the one which has acquired some fame (and a modern edition) because it is thought that Wesley played it to Mendelssohn and be• cause it is certainly Wesley's last composition for the organ. In fact, how• ever, the circumstances surrounding its composition are none too clear.

There are two descriptions of Wesley's meeting with Mendelssohn, the con• temporary accoimt in The Musical World, and that of C,W,Pearce in his Old

London City Churches.of 1909 which draws on the author's conversations with

Eliza Wesleye Unfortiinately neither source tells how Eliza came to meet

Mendelssohn on Thursday, September 7th 1837, but on that occasion Mendel• ssohn gave her a two line composition entitled Quartett? signed and dated 169

(Ex.90). Two days later Wesley completed his Fugue composed expressly for .

Dr. Mendelssohn which uses as its subject.the first six bars of Mendelssohn's

"album leaf". It does at least seem clear that Wesley's Fugue in B minor is "on a subject by Mendelssohn", although, as far as I know, no one has suggested it before. On Sunday, September lOth, Mendelssohn played at

St. Paul's, but it is clear from Pearce's account that Wesley did not hear him until Tuesday when he played at Christ Church Newgrate Street. He quotes

Wesley as saying, to his daughter, "Do you say this young man plays more fine• ly than Adams? I think Adams has the finest finger in Europei" The fact that Mendelssohn and Wesley evidently did not meet before September 12th makes it clearer than ever that Wesley borrowed his subject from Mendelssohn and not the other way about as has been assumed hitherto. However, there is no telling how closely Wesley's actual performance before Mendelssohn foll• owed the written music, if indeed there was any connection at all. It is clear from both accounts of the event that Wesley improvised. According to Pearce he told Eliza beforehand, "I have thought of my subject", and it is assumed that the subject was the one given to Eliza by Mendelssohn and that Wesley's fugue on the subject was composed as a preliminary sketch for this occasion. It seems unlikely that Wesley played the fugue as it stands, and cannot be proved that he played it in any form at all.

Sadly, if Mendelssohn composed the subject of the Fugue in B minor,

Wesley loses the credit for the one feature of any distinction in the whole work. It must be one of the poorest compositions Wesley ever wrote. The counterpoint to the answer, almost completely lacking in melodic distinct• ion and rhythmic independence (Ex.91), is representative of the fugue as a whole, although Wesley does achieve an ending which is effective, if not an undue strain on his skill as a composer, by restating the subject in octaves as he had done in the Voluntary in F the previous year. 170

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f{?^^ r f f f f J J f • J ' U f f 1 f 1 •JLI J / 172 APPENDIX

AN INDEX OF WESLEY'S ORGAN WORKS.

The index is divided into the following eig^t sections.

A Works for organ with other instruments B Duets C Duet Arrangements D Voluntaries E Independent Fugues F Short Pieces G Variations and Arrangements of popular tunes H Works now lost

Works are numbered in one sequence throughout the index. Within each section all works which can be dated exactly or approximately, by composition or by publication! are listed in chronological order. Other works are placed at the end in their most likely chronological order.

Works for organ with other instruments.

1. Sinfonia obligate per violino, org]ano e violoncello Ms, source: British Museum Add, 35011 1781 Unpublished

2. Quintetto in A In reality a three movement organ concerto with an orchestra of strings and (in the finale) horns Ms. source: British Museum Add, 35007 c. 1787

3. Concerto in D Ms. source: British Museum Add. 35009 March 22nd 1800 Unpublished

4. Concerto in B flat Organ part missing Ms. source: British Museum Add. 35009 c. 1811 Uhpublished

5. Concerto in C Organ part missing. The last movement is based on Rule Britannia. Ms. source: British Museum Add. 35009 c. 1815 Unpublished

B

Duets

6. Duett., for the Organ Ms. source: British Museum Add. 14344 (Copy by Vincent Novello) May 24th 1812 Uhpublished in Wesley's lifetime. First published in its original form in 1964 (Novello) 7. Introduction to the "St.Anne" Fugue Ms. sources: British Museum Add. 14340 1814 Add. 14344 Royal College of Music Ms. 640 4029 Unpublished 173

Duets written to be played with Eliza Wesley Ms. source: British Museum Add, 35007 c, 1837 Unpublished

8. Duetto I in D Andante

9. Duetto II in G Moderately Slow

10. Duetto III in F Moderately Slow

11. Duetto IV in A Lively

12. Duetto V in G

13. Duetto VI in B flat Moderately Slow - Lively

14. Duet in G Andante

Incomplete (Prime: 27 bars, Secondo: 15 bars)

C

Duet Arrangements

15. Fugue in E flat (the "St.Anne") J.S.Bach 1814 Ms. sources: British Museum Add. 14340 14344 Royal College of Music Ms. 640 4029 Samuel and Charles Wesley had played a duet arrangement of this work as early as 1810. Unpublished.

Duet arrangements made for Eliza Wesley Ms. source: British Museum Add. 35007 c. 1837

16. Fugue in A flat (48 Preludes £ind Fugues Bk.l) J.S.Bach

Transposed into A

17. Zadok the Priest Handel

18. 0 God when Thou Appearest Mozart

19. Minuet Mozart

20. Gloria Pergfolesi

D

Voluntaries

21. Vo;).untary in D Ms. source: British Museum Add^34996 ("Samuel Wesley's first music book") c. 1774 Unpublished 22. Voluntary in C Ms. soiu-ce: British Museum Add. 34998 c. 1774

23. Voluntary in D Ms. soinrce: British Museum Add, 14340 16th May 1788 Unpublished 174

24. Voluntary in D Qp. 6 No. 1 No ms. source. Published: Hodsoll. Source: Royal College of Music 1800-1806

25. Voluntary in C Op. 6 No. 2 No ms. source. Published: Hodsoll. Source: Royal College of Music 1800-1806

26. Voluntary in C minor Op, 6 No, 3 No ms. sovirce. Published: Hodsoll. Source: Royal College of Music 1800-1806

27. Voluntary in G Op. 6 No, 4 No ms. source. Published: Hodsoll, Source: Royal College of Music 1800-1806

28. Voluntary in D 0P> 6 No, 5 No ms, source. Published: Hodsoll. Source: Royal College of Music 1800-1806

29. Voluntary in C Op, 6 No. 6 No ms. source. Published: Hodsoll. Source: Royal College of Music 1800-1806

30. Voluntary in E flat Op. 6 No, 7 No ms. source. Published: Birchall. Source: Royal College of Music 1806-1807

31. Voluntary in D 0P« 6 No. 8 No ms. source. Published: Birchall. Source: Royal College of Music 1807-1813

32. Voluntary in G minor Op. 6 NO. 9 No ms. source. Published: Birchall. Source: Royal College of Music 1807-1813

33. Voluntary in F Op. 6 No.10 Ms, source: British Museum Add, 35008 Jan, 1814 Published: Birchall. Source: Royal College of Music 1814

34. Voluntary in A Op. 6 No.11 No ms, source. Published: Hodsoll, Source: Royal College of Music 1814-1817

35. Full Voluntary in D minor. Ms. source: Royal College of Music Ms. 4025 (sketch of bars 82-101 of fugue with its subject) 1816 Published by Clementi with Twelve Short Pieces Source: British Museum. Entered at Stationers' Hall 7th JUne 1817

36. Voluntary in D Ms. source: British Museum Add. 34089 Very Slow - Fugue 8th Oct. 1817 Larghetto I8th Oct. 1817 Coda Oct. 1817 Unpublished

37. Voluntary in B flat (entitled "Voluntary I2th") Ms. source: British Museum Add, 34089 Slow - (2nd movement) 5th Nov. 1817 Moderately Slow 6th Nov. 1817 Unpublished 175

38. Voluntary in F Op,.6 No.12 No ms. source. Published: Hodsoll. Source: Royal College of Music c.1818

A first set of three voluntaries for the organ, composed and inscribed to John Harding Esq. No ms. source. Published: Preston. Source: King's College Cambridge 1825

39, Voluntary No. 1 in D

40. Voluntary No. 2 in F

41. Voluntary No. 3 in D

A second set of three voluntaries for the organ, composed and inscribed to John Harding Esq. No ms. source. Published: Preston. Source: King's College Cambridge 1825

42, Voluntary No, 4 in E minor

43, Volimtary No. 5 in C

44. Volimtary No. 6 in B flat

45, Voluntary in C minor inscribed to Thomas Adams Ms. source: Royal College of Music Ms.4022 (fugue only) 24th JUly 1826 Published: D'Almaine & Co, Source: British Museum c,1834-1837

46. A Short and Familiar Voluntary for the Organ No ms. source. Published: Hodsoll, Source: British Museum Entered at Stationers' Hall 3rd Feb. 1827

47. Voluntary in B flat inscribed to Thomas Attwood i Ms. source: Royal College of Music Ms. 4028 Published: Hodsoll, Source: British Museum 27th Feb, 1829 Entered at Stationers' Hall 27th April 1830 48. A Loud Voluntary with Introduction and Fugue Ms. source: British Museum Add. 35008 6th Sept. 1830 Published with Six Introductory Movements: dementi. Col lard & Col lard Source: Royal College of Music 1831 Six Organ Voluntaries composed for the use of Young Organists Op.36 Ms. source: Royal College of Music Ms. 4025 Published: Dean. Source: British Museum 1831-1832

49. Voluntary in F Op.36 No. 1

50. Voluntary in A Op.36 No. 2

51. Voluntary in G Op.36 No. 3

52, Voluntary in B flat Op.36 No, 4

53. Voluntary in D Op.36 No, 5 176

54. Voluntary in C Op.36 No,6

55, Voluntary in A Ms, source: British Museum Add. 35007 1823-1836 Unpublished.

56'o Voluntary in D Ms. so\jrce: British Museum, Addi 35007 (f57,58) 1823-1836 Unpublished.

57. Voluntary in D Ms. source: British Museum Add. 35007 (f55,61,62) 1823-1836 f^ancis Routh suggests that these two separated movements belong to one voluntary in his book. Early English Organ Music. The first movement ends on an imperfect cadence. Unpublished,

58. Voluntary in F Ms. source: British Museum Add. 35007 I8th Oct. 1836

59. Introduction and Fugue in G Ms. source: British Museum Add. 35006 ciil837 . Unpublished.

60. Introduction and Fugue in D minor . Ms. source: British Museum Add, 35006 c,1837 Unpublished

61. Voluntary in C Ms. source: British Museum Add. 34089 No date ascertained Unpublished

62. Voluntary in G inscribed to Thomas Adams. No ms. soixrce. Published: only an arrangement on three staves by c,1830 W.TaBest is now extant. Source: British Museum

Six Fugues with Introductions,- for Young Organists. Ms. source: Royal College of Music Ms, 4025 ciil830 Unpublished.

63. Fugue No. 1 in D

64. Fugue No. 2 in B flat

65, Fugue No. 3 in F

66. Fugue Nb. 4 in F

67. Fugue No. 5 in E flat

68. Fugue No. 6 in C

E

Independent Fugues

Four Fugues for the Organ Ms. source: British JRiseum Add. 34998 Nov. 1774 Unpublished 177

69. Fugrue in B flat

70. Fugue in G

71. Fugue in D minor

72, Fugue in G

73, Fugue in G c,1837 Ms. source: British Museum Add. 35006 Unpublished

74. Fugue in B minor "composed expresjsly for Dr. Mendelssohn" Ms. source: British -Museum Add, 35007 9th SepU 1837 Utapublished in Wesley's lifetime. First published in 1962 (Hinrichsen)

75. Fugue in C Ms. source: British libiseum Addv 35007 no date ascertained Unpublished

Short Pieces

Three Cornet Pieces Ms source: British Museum Add, 34998 c.1774 Unpublished 76, Cornet Piece in D

77, Cornet Piece in D minor

78, Cornet Piece in B minor

79, Slow Movement in F No ms, source extant. Published by Vincent Novello in "Short Organ Melodies" from "an original ms. dated Sept, gth 1800" 1848

80, Lento in F Ms. source: Royal College of Music Ms. 4021 1810 Unpublished

Twelve Short Pieces for the Organ with a.,Full Voluntary added, inscribed to organists in general.

(The Full Voluntary is listed under Voluntaries No.35) Ms. source: Royal College of Music Ms,4025 10th auiy 1816 Published: dementi. Source: British Museum Entered at Stationers' Hall 7th June 1817

81. Short Piece No. 1 in G

82^ Short Piece No. 2 in G

83. Short Piece No. 3 in G

84. Short Piece No. 4 in A minor.

85, Short Piece NO. 5 in A minor

86. Short Piece No. 6 in A minor 178

87. Short Piece No. 7 in A minor

88. Short Piece No. 8 in F

89. Short Piece No. 9 in F

90. Short Piece No.10 in F

91. Short Piece Nb.ll in D

92. Short Piece (unnumbered) in D

93. Short Piece No.12 in D

94. Short. Piece in C minor Ms. source: Royal College of Music Ms.2141b 24th June 1829 Unpublished

95. Grand Coronation March No ms. source Published: Willis. Source: British Museum 1830

Six Introductory Movements for the Organ Ms. source: see individual pieces Published: dementi, Collard & Collard. Source: Royal College of Music 1831

96. Andante in D Ms. source: Bi^itish Museum Add. 35007 (title A Desk Voluntary No, 5)

97. Adagietto in E No ms. source

98. Larghetto in F Ms. source: British Museum Add.35007 (title A Desk Voluntary No. 3) 27th Aug. 1830

J" — 99. Andante in A No ms. source

100. Larghetto in C No ms. source

101. Largo in E minor Ms. source: British Museum Add.35007 (title A Desk Voluntary No. 4)

102. Short Piece in C Ms. source: Royal College of Music Ms.4025 c.1830 Unpublished. This piece was apparently written with the Six Fugues with Introductions for Young Organists.

103. Pastoral Melody - No ms. source extant. Published by Vincent Novello in "Short Organ Melodies" from "his own ms. dated Nbv.28th 1831" 1848 179

104. Short Piece in C Ms. source: British Museum Add. 35007 1823-36 Unpublished.

105. Short Piece in D Ms. source: British Museum Add. 35007 1823-36 Unpublished,

Four Short Preludes Ms. source: British Museum Add. 35007 c.1834

106. Prelude in C

107. Prelude in G

108. Prelude in D

109. Prelude in A Scraps for the Organ Ms. sources: Royal College of Music Ms*4021 Ms. 1151 no date ascertained Unpublished in Wesley's lifetime. All four pieces were published by Vincent Novello in "Short Organ Melodies" (1848)

110. Aria in D minor (No.l in Ms.4021, No.2 in Ms. 1151)

111. Larghetto in B flat (No.2 in Ms 4021, N0e3 Lento, in Ms. 1151)

112. Andante in G (No.3 in Ms.4021, No.l in Ms.1151)

113. Vivace in E flat (No.4 in Ms.4021 and Ms. 1151, Allegretto cantabile in Ms.1151)

114. Air in C minor Ms soiirce: Royal College of Musiq Ms.640 no date ascertained Unpublished in Wesley's lifetime. First published in 1848 by Vincent Novello in "Short organ Melodies".

115. Diapason Melody in F No ms, source. Published by Vincent Novello in "Short organ Melodies" 1848

116. Diapason Piece in G No ms, source. Published by Vincent Novello in "Short Organ Melodies" 1848

117. Diapason Piece in C Nb ms, source. Published by Vincent Novello in "Short Organ Melodies" 1848

118. ,Diapason Piece in A No ms. source. Published by Vincent Novello in "Short organ Melodies" 1848 180

Variations and arrangements of popular tunes

119. An Old English Melody Ms. soiu-ce: Royal College of Music Ms.4038 June 1806 Unpublished in Wesley's lifetime. First published in 1848 by Vincent Novello in "Short Organ Melodies"

120. God Save the King (with 3 variations) in D Ms, source: Royal College of Music Ms.4022 Published: W.& D.Galloway. Source: British Museum C.1815

121, Rule Britannia (with 1 variation) Ms, source: Royal College of Music Ms,4022 Published: W. & D. Galloway. Source: British Museum c,1815

122. God Save the King (with 8 variations), in B flat Ms, source: British MUsevmi Add,34089 1st Dec,1817 Unpublished.

The following four pieces are written partly on three staves, and were probably performed with the help of a second player. 123, Rousseau's Dream (with 1 variation) Ms. source: British SAiseum Add.35007 1823-1836 Unpublished,

124. Rule Britannia Ms.source: British Museum Add. 35007 1823-1836 Unpublished,

125, Aileen Aroon Ms.source: British Museum Add, 35007 1823-1836 lAipublishedo

126, Coolun Ms.source: British Museum Add.35007 1823-1836 Unpublished,

127. The Old Christmas Carol. No ms. source. Published by Vincent Novello in "Short Organ Melodies" 1848

H

Works now lost

Little faith can be placed in the references in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, It states that the list of Wesley's compositions which it contains was compiled with the help of Eliza Wesley, but it is inaccurate on many verifiable points. It includes a list of twelve organ concertos, but mentions no violin concertos, nine of which are still to be-foimd in the British Museum, These apparently lost org^ concertos are not included in this list since it is more than probable that Eliza Wesley confused the concertos for organ with those for violin. The other references are more reliable. They are the list of 181

published compositions which appeared with Wesley's obituary in The Musical World and contemporary advertisements..

128, A Book of Interludes for Young Orgranists. Published: Preston (by 1837) Coventry and Hollier Ref, (i) Advertisement in J,F.Danneley's Dictionary of Music (published by I^eston) 1825 Source: British Museum (ii) Obituary

129, Studio for the Organ exemplified in a series of exercises Published: D*Almaine & Co, Ref. Title page of Voluntary in C minor inscribed to Thomas Adams.

130, Voluntary in G dedicated to Henry Gauntlett Ref, (i) Obituary (ii) Grove

131, Voluntary in G minor dedicated to William Linley Ref. (i) Obituary (ii) Grove

132, Grand Fugue dedicated to William Drummer Published: Willis Ref. (i) Obituary ("contains the March from the Overture to the Ode to St.Cecilia's Day") (ii) Grove (here called a Voluntary)

133, A Second. Voluntary dedicated to William Drummer, Ref, ca-ove

134, Fugue in D Published: Novello Ref, (i) Obituary (ii) Grove

135, Twelve Short Pieces with Grand Fugue Ref. Grove (listed in addition to the Twelve Short Pieces with a Full Voluntary added, but may none• theless be the same work.)

136, Characteristic Airs for the Seraphine Ref, Grove

137, Easy Voluntaries. Published: D*Almaine Ref, (i) Obituary (ii) Grove

These are probably identical with the Voluntaries Op,36 which were originally published by Dean, but are advertised by D'Almaine on the title page of the Volimtary in C minor inscribed to Thomas Adams, 0P«36 is not mentioned in the obituary, but the list in Grove includes these Easy Voluntaries, 0Po36, and the following work,

138, A Second Set of Easy Voluntary. Ref, Grove 182

139. Grand Duet. Published: Lonsdale Ref. (i) Obituary (ii) Grove

140, Grand Duet dedicated to F.Marshall, Ref. Grove Grove lists three Grand Duets, the obituary two, in each case including the Duet in C. 183

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anonymous Announcement of Samuel Wesley's death. The Musical World London Oct.13th 1837

Samuel Wesley's Obituary (including a list of his compositions). The Musical World London Nov. 3rd 1837

Progress of Bach's Music in England Musical Times London June 1851

Barrington, Daines Miscellanies Nichols London 1781

Bishop, C.K.K. Notes on Church Organs London 1873

Blewitt, Jonas A Complete Treatise on the Organ to which is added a Set of Explanatory Voluntaries Longman and Broderip London c.1795

Blom, Eric (ed.) Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (5th edition) Macmillan London 1954

Blume, Friedrich Two Centuries of Bach Oxford University Press London 1950

Blume, Friedrich (ed.) Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart Bttrenreiter Kassel 1951-73

Burney, Charles A General History of Music 4 vols, London 1776-89

Caldwell, John English Keyboard Music before the Nineteenth Century Blackwell Oxford 1973

Clarke, Mary Cowden The Life and Labours of Vincent Novello Novello London 1864

Glutton, Cecil and Niland, Austin The British Organ Batsford London 1963

Cudworth, Charles The English Organ Concerto The Score London Sept.1953

An Essay by John Marsh Music and Letters 36 London 1955

Edwards, F.G. Bach and Wesley Musical Times London Feb^l896

Bach's Music in England Musical Times London Sept.,Oct.,Nov.,Dec.1896

Samuel Wesley Musical Times London Aug,,Dec.1902

Evans, Charles The Ancestry of the Wesleys Notes and Queries London June 1948

Hawkins, Sir John A General History of the Science and Practice of Music 5 vols. London 1776 184

Hinrichsen, Max Wesley and Mendelssohn in England Tallis to Wesley Vol,14 Hinrichsen London 1962

Holmes, Edward Cathedral Music and Composers: Nos,13 and 14, Samuel Wesley Musical Times London July, Aug, 1851

Hopkins, E.J. and Rimbault, E.F, The Organ, its History and Construction Cocks London 1855

Leffler, Henry see under Pearce, C.W,

Lightwood, James T. Samuel Wesley, Musician Epworth London 1937 Reissued Blom N6w York 1972

Mansfield, Orlando A. J.S.Bach's First English Apostles Musical Quarterly London April 1935

Marsh, John Eighteen Voluntaries for the Organ ... to which is prefix»d an Explanation of the ... Stops Preston London 1791

Niland, Austin see under Glutton, Cecil pearce, C.W, Notes on Old London City Churches, their Organs, Organists, and Musical Associations. London 1909

Notes on English Organs of the period 1800-1810, taken chiefly from the manuscript of Henry Leffler London 1912

Philips, Gordon Preface to Tallis to Wesley Vol.7 Hinrichsen London 1957

Preface to Tallis to Wesley Vol.5 Hinrichsen London 1960

Redlich, Hans The Bach Revival in England The Hinrichsen Music Book Vol.7 Hinrichsen London 1952

Rimbault, E.F. see under Hopkins, E.J.

Routh, Fremcla Early English Organ Music Barrie and Jenkins London 1973

Routley, Erik The.Musical Wesleys Jenkins London 1968

Sumner, W.L. The Organ: its Evolution, Principles of Construction and Use. Macdonald London 1962

Sutton, Sir John A Short Account of Organs Built in England from the Reign of Charles II to the Present Time Masters London 1847

Wesley, Eliza (ed.) Letters of Samuel Wesley to Mr, Jacobs Partridge London 1875 Reissued Hinrichsen London 1957

Wesley, Samuel A Sketch of the State of Music in England, from the year 1778 up to the present Time The Musical World London March 18th 1836 185

Williams, Peter F Preface to Tallis to Wesley, Vol.24 Hinrichsen London 1961

J.S.Bach and English Organ Music Music and Letters 44 London 1963

Some Interesting Organ Terms (Diapason, Principal, Bourdon, Dulciana, Cremona) Musical Times London June, July, Aug., Oct., Dec, 1965

The European Organ 1450-1850 Batsford London 1967

Wilson, John John Stanley. Some Opus Numbers and Editions Music and Letters 39 London 1958

Wilson, Michael The English Chamber Organ: History and Development 1650-1850 Cassirer Oxford 1968

Winters, W . An Account of the Remarkable Musical Talents of Several Members of the Wesley Family Davis London 1874